A Little Boy Lost
by EGB Fan
Summary: The Extreme Ghostbusters have rescued Kylie's long lost childhood friend Jack from the Grundle. So, where does he go from here?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: _Ghostbusters_ was created by Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd. I am neither. I created all of the original characters in this story, so that there would _be_ a story - but I own nothing, really.

_Extreme Ghostbusters: _**A Little Boy Lost**

Part 1

**12:20 am:**

"Case? Are you ok? Check it out, Eddie – they must have got the Grundle."

"So where's that other one that Roland wouldn't let us blast?"

"He's gotta be around here somewhere. I wonder if he's… well, you know."

"Look – he's right there. Casey, go inside – find Roland."

The two voices seemed to fade in, becoming gradually clearer, along with the outline of – strangely enough – somebody's backyard in the darkness. Two people approached, one far shorter than the other. No, wait – he wasn't short, he was just sitting down. In a wheelchair. The other one was walking. It was hard to make out either of their faces in the darkness, but the voices had definitely been male.

"Jack?" the man in the wheelchair ventured cautiously.

Jack. Ok then. That sounded right. Jack nodded slowly, rising unsteadily to his feet, for he had been slumped on the floor. He felt like he had been unconscious for some time, though he had no idea how long, and he ached all over.

"Come on," the man in the wheelchair said officiously. "Are you ok? Can you walk? Ok, come with us – there's someone who wants to see you. She'll explain what happened to you."

"That should be interesting," the other man muttered, with an exotic accent, as Jack began to follow the wheelchair into the nearby house.

The scene inside was as perplexing to Jack as had been the backyard and the two men who appeared to know him. In a fraction of a second he took it all in. A man was there. Jack didn't recognise him at all. He was black, dressed in some kind of jumpsuit and he'd probably be tall if he was standing, rather than crouching in front of that child. The child was about nine years of age, and resembled the man considerably. There was a woman there too. Now she was familiar…

"Kylie."

It was the man in the wheelchair who spoke, in the second that they walked through the door. Jack knew that name. Still dazed and confused, he squinted at the woman in front of him as the stranger added, "Friend of yours?"

"Jack," the woman said softly, her eyes filling with tears.

"Kylie?" Jack asked incredulously.

He couldn't believe it. It really was her: Kylie Griffin, his best friend. But she looked so different… so _old_. Well, not old exactly, but no longer a child. For a moment, Jack looked down at himself. He was no longer a child either. He knew that time had passed, but he couldn't remember any of what had happened and he didn't understand what was happening now. But that could wait. Right now there was something more important to worry about. Kylie was running towards him, and he opened his arms to her. She hugged him tightly. Jack felt someone's eyes on him, and then the man with the accent spoke, muttering as he had before: "Why don't you just kiss him?"

Kylie appeared not to hear this. She stepped back from Jack's embrace and put a gloved hand to his cheek, as though testing whether he was real. Her green eyes were moist and she was wearing an unsteady smile that seemed to falter with emotion. "We've got a lot of catching up to do," she said, in a choked voice. "_After_ we find your parents."

His parents. Jack thought of them, and a lump came to his throat. Find them? Why? Kylie knew where they lived. Then it occurred to him that they might have moved away. Well, clearly they had. Just how much time _had_ passed? Enough time for him to grow into a man, apparently. The thought terrified him. He wasn't ready for that.

**01:45 am:**

"Jack Ryan," Kylie said impatiently to the grim faced police officer at the desk. "I tell you, it's him. I'd know him anywhere."

"You say you haven't seen him for over ten years, since you were kids?" the officer asked.

"That's right," said Kylie. "But I know it's him."

"Where did you find him?"

That was an awkward question, and Kylie didn't know how to answer it. Ought she to give some version of the truth? If so, what? Obviously she would have to omit the rather important detail of the time Jack spent as a monster. She cut a sideways glance at Roland, who was waiting with Jack. Eduardo always avoided police stations when he could; Garrett had been prepared to go with them, but accepted the decline of his offer without question. Roland, however, had insisted on accompanying them. Kylie, though she had said she didn't need him, was grateful to have him there. She found that she was comforted by his presence.

x x x

_Kylie winced, beginning to feel uncomfortable. Grandma Rose was clutching her hand a little too tightly. Neither of them was crying. Kylie couldn't cry anymore and Grandma Rose was always calm in front of strangers. Jack's mommy was crying, though. Jack's daddy had his arm around her, and he was shaking his head at a big policeman who was talking to him. The policeman kept looking at the door. Kylie thought he wanted Jack's mommy and daddy to go._

"_Kylie!"_

_She turned and saw her own daddy walking towards her. She hadn't seen him for two weeks, or about that long. She couldn't remember exactly. He looked worse than he had looked the last time he was home. He looked very untidy. He still had his work clothes on, but he wasn't wearing them in the smart way that he normally did. Grandma Rose had made Kylie brush her hair before she went to the police station._

_Grandma Rose let go of her hand, and Daddy pulled Kylie into his arms. He squeezed her, hard, saying her name over and over again and stroking her hair. He sounded like he wanted to cry too. Then he pushed her gently away from him and looked into her face. He was very white. He said her name again: "Kylie. Thank God you're all right."_

_When he said that, he looked strange, like he felt bad for saying it. He looked over Kylie's shoulder, at Jack's mommy and daddy. Kylie knew he must feel bad that Jack was gone, but glad that she was still there. Then Daddy looked at her again and asked, "Are you ok, sweetheart?"_

_Kylie didn't know what to say. She didn't know the answer to that question. She just nodded, because she knew that Daddy wanted her to be ok. Daddy looked like he didn't believe her, and he hugged her again. Then Kylie heard Jack's daddy shouting. Her daddy looked up and frowned. He started to walk towards Jack's mommy and daddy. Kylie turned round, and saw that Jack's daddy was shouting at Grandma Rose. That made Kylie angry, and she scowled at him._

"_We trusted you with him!" Jack's daddy was shouting. "He was your responsibility! Where the hell were you? Why weren't you supervising them properly?"_

_Jack's mommy was still crying, and Jack's daddy still had his arm around her. Kylie's daddy walked up to them and stepped between Jack's daddy and Grandma Rose. He said, in a very wobbly voice, "Daniel… please don't blame Rose."_

_Kylie walked over to Grandma Rose and looked up at her. She looked very upset, like she was going to cry again. Jack's daddy must have upset her by saying it was her fault, because it wasn't. Grandma Rose had been in the kitchen, making dinner for Kylie and Jack. How was she supposed to know about the monster? How was she supposed to know Jack would open the window? It wasn't her fault._

"_You," Jack's daddy growled at Kylie's daddy, poking him in the chest. "You're no better. Your grandmother's too old to take care of two children on her own. If you'd been here… if you'd take some responsibility…!"_

_Daddy didn't fight back. Kylie knew that he wouldn't fight back, because Jack was gone and Jack's daddy was very upset. But it wasn't Grandma Rose's fault, and it wasn't Daddy's fault either. It wasn't fair for Jack's daddy to shout at them like that._

"_Stop it!" Kylie yelled suddenly. "It isn't his fault, and it isn't Grandma Rose's fault!"_

_Grandma Rose, Daddy and Jack's daddy all stared down at her. Jack's mommy just kept crying. Kylie hated seeing Jack's mommy cry like that. It made her wish, even more than she wished it already, that she had stopped Jack from going. Was it her fault, what had happened? Should she have warned Jack about the monster sooner?_

"_I… I… I…" she stammered._

_Daddy put a hand on her shoulder. "It's ok, honey," he said. "You don't have to say anything."_

_Kylie felt more tears on the backs of her eyes. "I told him not to open the window," she said quietly._

_Jack's daddy stared at her. Jack's mommy even stopped crying for a second. They both just stared at her. Kylie wished she hadn't said it. Then Jack's mommy started crying again, and Jack's daddy crouched down to look at Kylie._

"_Kylie," he said sharply, but he wasn't shouting, like he had done with Daddy and Grandma Rose. He was trying to be nice to her, but his voice sounded strange and angry. "What happened?"_

_Kylie didn't say anything. She knew he wouldn't believe her, and then he would shout at her as well._

"_Please," he begged. "What happened?"_

"_Are you the girl's father?"_

_Kylie looked up, and saw that a policeman had joined them. He wasn't as big as some of the other policemen, but Kylie didn't like him any more than the others._

"_Yes," said Daddy._

"_We'd like to interview your grandmother first, Mr. Griffin," the policeman said. "Then, if we may, we'd like to ask your daughter some questions. You can stay with her for that, of course."_

_Daddy nodded._

"_Mrs. Lockyer…"_

_The policeman held his hand out to Grandma Rose, and she followed him down a long corridor. Kylie grabbed Daddy's hand, wondering when Grandma Rose would be allowed to come back. She wondered where Mommy was, and if she would come when she heard that Jack was gone. One of the policemen had said that he would try to call her mommy._

"_Kylie." Jack's daddy was talking to her again. He sounded calmer. He didn't sound angry anymore, but sad. "Please. You have to tell us what happened."_

"_Daniel…"_

_When Daddy spoke, Kylie looked up at him. The way he was looking at Jack's daddy was so sad. He said to Jack's daddy, in that wobbly voice, "Please don't. She'll tell everything to the police."_

_Kylie bit her lip. She didn't want to talk to the police. She knew that they couldn't bring Jack back, because Jack was a monster now. She didn't know if Jack would ever be able to come back. But she knew that she had to talk to the police. They were going to make her talk to them. She didn't know whether to tell the police the truth, or to tell them that she didn't see what had happened to Jack._

x x x

"He was just kind of wandering round," Kylie said weakly. "Near my friend's house. That's my friend – over there," and she pointed at Roland.

"What were you doing at your friend's house at this time of night?"

"Is that important?"

"You don't have to tell me," shrugged the police officer. "Was anyone else with you, apart from you and your friend?"

"Um, no." She didn't want to complicate matters further – but she was going to have a job keeping track of all these lies.

"All right, Miss. I'll get someone to talk to him and then, if it really _is_ Jack Ryan, we'll get on to tracing his parents."

Jack was taken away by two police officers, presumably to be interviewed. Kylie and Roland were shown to a waiting room, which fortunately was equipped with a coffee machine. Kylie sank into one of the uncomfortable chairs with a Styrofoam mug of black coffee, letting out a heavy sigh when the seat took the weight from her feet.

"Are you ok?" asked Roland, sitting down next to her.

"I don't know," shrugged Kylie. "It was all just so fast – I can't believe it's happened. I can't believe Jack's actually here, in this building."

"I wonder what they're saying to him."

"They're probably asking him where he's been for the last decade. He doesn't seem to remember anything. Amnesia – it'll come in handy if they ask him any difficult questions."

They were silent for several minutes.

"You can go if you want to," Kylie said suddenly. "There's not much point in waiting for me. I have to take care of Jack, and when I do go back I'll only get fired."

"What? Why?" asked Roland.

Kylie snorted scathingly. "I let the Grundle out of the containment unit, in case you hadn't noticed."

Roland looked at her. "Egon's a good guy. He might understand why we did it."

"We?" Kylie returned his gaze. "I'm not going to tell him you helped me."

"Why not?"

"No sense in us both losing our jobs."

**06:25 am:**

Jack found Kylie's room a little unsettling. He had been expecting movie stars and musicians on her walls rather than weird conceptual art and arcane symbols. It was an attic apartment, not particularly warm, and without many places to sit: just a desk-chair, a window seat and a sizeable double bed. Jack found that he felt slightly panicky when he tried the window seat, so he sat on the chair at the desk. Kylie had told him he was welcome to her bed if he was tired, but just lying down and going to sleep seemed to a little rude. And besides, that cat took up a surprising amount of space, and Jack got the feeling that it wouldn't take kindly to bedfellows.

Kylie returned at last, looking absolutely exhausted. She kicked off her boots and went to sit on the bed. She smiled at Jack and asked, "How are you feeling?"

"All right," Jack replied. "Did you lose your job?"

"No." Kylie shook her head. "No – Egon said that my disobeying his orders turned out to be the right thing to do, because otherwise… otherwise you might have been lost forever."

Jack just looked at her for a few moments. Kylie shuffled over towards the sleeping cat, creating a space on the bed. "Come over here," she invited. "I have to tell you this."

"Don't you want to sleep?" asked Jack.

"No. Come on."

Obediently Jack crossed the room and sat down beside Kylie.

"You were a Grundle," she began. "It's a monster that takes children and turns them into one of their own. When the original Grundle was captured all those years ago, all the children it changed returned to normal. All but one, that is. You were different, Jack. I heard this from the Grundle itself. The night you… disappeared… it changed you. Apparently it actually wanted me, but… well, that doesn't really matter now. The Grundle wasn't happy with you – you weren't receptive enough to its influence, or something. So it put you away, inside a tree – 'to gestate', it said. Shortly afterwards the Ghostbusters captured it, so you stayed where you were, until a few nights ago. You spent some time scaring kids, and I know you managed to change at least one: Casey Jackson, that kid you saw earlier."

"Is he ok?" Jack asked anxiously.

"Yeah, he's fine. You know about the Grundle getting out of the containment unit." This had been part of the explanation as to why Kylie feared for her position with the Ghostbusters – an explanation that Jack hadn't quite understood, though he didn't say so. "We trapped him all over again, of course. Casey was released, and…" – she gave him a fond smile – "so were you."

Jack just looked at her.

"Yeah, well, it's a lot to take in, I know," Kylie finished quickly.

At last Jack spoke: "Cool cat."

"Um… thanks."

"What's his name?"

"Pagan."

"So how are you?" asked Jack.

"Me?" Kylie was surprised by the question. "I'm ok. I went through school, did pretty ok, and I just started college. You know, Jack, you're going to have to try and catch up with everything you missed. You never even got to finish first grade – the last book you read was probably _Butch and his Ball_."

"I'm glad you made new friends."

"Um, yeah, well… I only met them this September. Before that, you were the only real friend I had. I still can't believe you're actually here."

"Is that guy with the goatee your boyfriend?"

"_What_?" Kylie's eyes widened. "Oh, Jack. No."

"He was looking at me funny."

"Was he? I'm sorry – he's weird like that. It's not personal."

Though he tried not to let it show, Jack was finding it difficult to talk to her. She had changed so much – she'd grown up – but he didn't feel any different from how he had felt ten years ago. It was crazy: she was trying to talk to him like he was an adult, and he was trying to talk to her like she was a child.

"You look good," he remarked. He didn't really mean to say it, but it was something he had noticed, and in a way that was unfamiliar to him.

"Um… thanks," Kylie smiled awkwardly. "So do you."

"Yeah?"

"Sure."

"How's your dad?"

"Oh, he's ok. Still away a lot, working too hard."

"And your mom?"

"Ah, well. I assume she's absolutely fine and not missing me at all. I haven't seen her for a few years."

Jack's brow furrowed with concern. One thing about Kylie that stuck out in his memory was her distress when her mother had left, and to him the image of her tear-stained six-year-old face seemed so recent.

"It's ok," said Kylie. "I'm over it. She left a long time ago, you know."

"It only seems like months."

"Well. The world moved on. It's going to be strange for you."

"And… and what about your Grandma Rose?" Jack ventured timidly. "Is she…?"

"Dead?" Kylie suggested, her eyelids drooping. "Yes."

"I'm sorry."

"Well, she was old. She was old when _you_ knew her."

"So…" Jack went on awkwardly. "My mom and dad. You don't know where they are?"

"No. I'm sorry, Jack. None of us has seen or heard anything from your parents since… since you disappeared."

Jack looked confused. "I don't get it," he objected. "Our dads really used to like each other, and my parents loved you."

"Yeah, they did love me," agreed Kylie. "Not anymore, though."

"Why?"

"Ah, Jack… it was difficult."

Jack was silent for a few moments. He couldn't possibly imagine everything that had happened since his disappearance. The world really had moved on, and he was daunted by the tasks that lay ahead of him. He decided not to worry too much about all that until he had been reunited with his parents. The police were taking care of that, of course. Inside Jack was still a child, and quite accustomed to letting other people take care of things. But after that, he would have a lot of growing up to do.

**26 hours later:**

"Get lucky last night, did you?"

Kylie's smile turned to a scowl when Eduardo greeted her in this way. She hadn't seen him, nor any of her colleagues, since Jack's rescue two nights before. She and Jack had both spent most of the day sleeping when the events of the previous twenty-odd hours had caught up with them, and then talked long into the night. Again. Kylie had been tempted just to go to sleep again that morning – an enticement to which Jack had succumbed – but she had doggedly gone to work and resolved to resume a more or less normal sleep pattern.

"Of course not," she snapped at Eduardo. He was leaning comfortably in an armchair, his legs slung over one side, reading a magazine.

Garrett and Roland were there too, the latter sitting at the table at the back of the room, some yards away from the rest of them, tapping away at his laptop. He looked up on hearing Kylie's voice and asked, "So how is he?"

"Confused." Kylie wandered across the room and leaned lightly against the edge of the table. "It's so sad. He's lost ten years of his life! He's missed out on his childhood and his education and… and…"

"Puberty," Eduardo put in helpfully. "_There's_ a plus side."

"Well," said Kylie, "I'm sure that's very confusing for him too. But anyway, there are more important things. I mean, just what do you do when you've been as good as dead for ten years? We were in the first grade when he disappeared – he didn't even get a basic education."

"Finally, somebody who's stupider than me," muttered Eduardo.

Kylie heard. "He is _not_ stupid!" she snapped. "He's ignorant. He's ten years behind the rest of us – what do you expect?" Angry on Jack's behalf, she couldn't resist a little dig, so she added, "_You_, on the other hand, are just plain dense."

"So, um, did the cops find his parents yet?" Garrett broke in hastily.

"Not the last I heard," replied Kylie.

Eduardo pulled a face and remarked ominously, "Oof…"

"What the hell is your problem now?" Kylie demanded, rounding angrily on him. "If you can't think of anything helpful to say then - "

"Don't yell at me," snapped Eduardo. "I'm just worried, that's all."

"Worried?" Kylie asked guardedly. "Why?"

"Well, the cops have had plenty of time to trace Jack's parents. A day and two nights – they should have done it by now. All they need is a name; they have access to everything there is to know about everybody in the country. It's terrible."

"It's been a long time – they could be anywhere by now," Kylie said uneasily.

"That shouldn't bother the cops – not unless they changed their names or skipped the country or - " – looking up from his magazine, Eduardo stopped short when he caught sight of Kylie's anxious expression. "But they're almost definitely not dead," he added hastily. "That would be on file."

"Almost definitely," echoed Kylie, her shoulders sinking. "Great, thanks."

"It'll be ok," Roland smiled reassuringly. He reached out and put a hand on Kylie's arm, and Eduardo bristled visibly. "Kylie, don't you or any of your family have any idea…?"

"What happened to Jack's parents?" Kylie finished for him, and then shook her head. "We lost touch very soon after Jack disappeared. It ended badly. He was at my house when it happened, remember. His father held Grandma Rose and my dad responsible and I… well, they were both pretty pissed at me as well."

"Why?" asked Roland, looking concerned. "You were just a kid."

"I don't wanna talk about it. And besides, I don't really remember it that well," Kylie lied, just to make sure that he wouldn't be tempted to push. She decided to move the conversation along: "I hope Jack's ok – I left him at my place alone with Pagan…"

Watching her, Eduardo saw that she was addressing Roland as though they were the only two people in the room. Garrett had switched on the TV some minutes ago and was now watching a basketball game – he would definitely be absorbed in that until it was over. It was almost as though he didn't care about the Jack situation. He did care, of course – it was just that Kylie only seemed to want to talk about it with one person. Slightly nauseated by the scene, Eduardo swung his legs onto the ground, threw down his magazine and strode towards the kitchen.

Unsurprisingly, Slimer was raiding the fridge. He greeted the newcomer with a broad smile and his arms outstretched, but Eduardo was in no mood for that. "Don't even think about it," he cautioned, as Slimer drew near.

Slimer, in his child-like way, looked dejected as he turned and floated slowly from the room, his shoulders hunched. Eduardo couldn't find it in his heart to care. He went to the open fridge to see what was left, and found a few sodas. He cracked open a Coke, and reflected bitterly on the Ghostbusters' most recent case. Before Kylie had arrived that morning, Garrett and Eduardo had finally heard Jack's full story from Roland. Garrett was extremely touched and sympathetic, but all Eduardo could feel was resentment towards the closeness Roland and Kylie seemed to have developed over the whole fiasco. It wasn't as though he, Eduardo, wouldn't have been Kylie's confidant, had she asked. He would have lent her a sympathetic ear, and he would have defied Egon's orders – or whatever it was they did – with far more willingness than Roland had probably shown.

Eduardo sighed deeply, trying to dispel such thoughts from his mind. This was getting silly. Everywhere he looked he found a reason to be jealous of somebody over that girl: Egon, Jack, Roland… it'd probably be Garrett next. He had even been jealous of Pagan once, and that had got him into a lot of trouble, which probably served him right for envying a cat, he concluded bitterly. And for all of it, was Kylie really worth it? She was only a girl, after all.

At that moment she walked in. "Are you ok?" asked Eduardo, catching sight of her drained expression.

"This is serious, you know," Kylie returned coldly.

"I know."

"I want you to stop making snide little comments and… and implying that his parents have disappeared and no one knows what happened to them. Excuse me." She walked over to the fridge, and Eduardo obligingly stepped aside. "Because it really isn't funny."

"I'm sorry."

"You should be, because it isn't going to be easy for him, you know." The fridge door was obstructing the top half of her body, so that Eduardo couldn't see her face. "It's not just his education he's behind on – it's his whole life. When you made that stupid remark about me getting lucky last night, you were pretty much asking me if I'd slept with a seven year old."

Eduardo raised his eyebrows. "He's not interested, then?"

"No."

"What if he was?"

"What?"

"Well, are you disappointed?"

"Disappointed?" For some reason she was still in the fridge. "I've got my friend back. Why on earth would I be disappointed? I wasn't expecting him to fall in love with me or anything."

In spite of the words, Eduardo thought that she did sound disappointed. He could very well be imagining that, though. Then, without meaning to at all, he said quietly, "He'll come round."

At that moment Kylie pulled her head out of the fridge, slammed the door shut and spun round. Eduardo hadn't really been aware of what he'd said, but he had the feeling that it had angered her. He opened his mouth, trying to think of a way to make a joke of the whole conversation (yeah, she'd hate that, but old habits die hard), but he froze when he saw her throw herself against the fridge, bury her face in her hands and shake her head despairingly. For a moment he thought she must have been crying, which could have been awkward, but when she spoke it was obvious that she wasn't.

"Oh my God, Eduardo, it's terrible," she muttered bitterly.

"What is?" asked Eduardo. He had to lean pretty close to hear the muffled words.

"All of it. Jack _disappeared_, Eduardo, for more than _ten years_! There was so much pain and sadness when it happened – we all just assumed he was dead – and just imagine what his parents went through!" Suddenly she lifted her head from her hands, and looked directly at Eduardo. "And you know what the worst part is? It shouldn't have happened! God knows how many children were changed by the Grundle, but they all changed back! They all had their lives! But Jack… well, you know."

"You got him back," Eduardo pointed out.

"Well it's not good enough!" She looked angry now, with fists clenched and eyes blazing. "Somebody should have found him! I mean, whose responsibility was it?"

"I don't know."

"Well, hey, here's a thought: maybe it was the Ghostbusters' responsibility! Egon, and the rest of them – shouldn't they have made sure every child really _did_ change back? There must have been a strong PK trail leading to that tree at _some point_ – probably on the very night they caught the Grundle, because he told me Jack hadn't been there long when he was captured."

"Who told you?" Eduardo asked confusedly.

"The Grundle, of course!" snapped Kylie. "It should _not_ have happened. Can you imagine what we went through? Do you know what it did to _me_?"

Eduardo quietly took in Kylie's slightly eccentric appearance, but refrained from making a comment. Instead he said, "You can't blame them."

"Can't I? It was _their _mistake."

"Well… maybe." He couldn't be bothered to argue. "But being mad at them isn't exactly gonna do any good now, is it?"

Kylie looked at him for a long moment, and then let out a deep sigh. "I guess not," she conceded. "It's just… he's lost so much."

"At least he came back."

"Yeah."

"You're grateful for that, aren't you? Some kids disappear and never come back."

Kylie nodded. "I know. I just wonder… what happens next."

"Well," Eduardo half-shrugged. "We'll find out."

x x x

They found his mother first – that very afternoon, in fact. Kylie heard the news when she returned home to find Jack pacing the room.

"Why aren't you with her right now?" she asked, astonished. "Surely you want to see her as soon as you can."

"I do," Jack nodded vigorously. "She's on her way over here."

"On her way over here from…?"

"Sacramento."

"Oh!"

"That's quite far away, isn't it?"

"Well, yes," Kylie had to admit. "It's in California. That's right on the other side of the country."

"Thought so." Jack slumped down on the edge of Kylie's bed and looked at his hands. "It's going to be weird, isn't it?"

"Well… perhaps," said Kylie. "But she's your mom – she must have been… there's no way to describe how she must have felt when she heard you'd been found."

"She's married to somebody else."

"Oh. Right."

"He's called Ted Beaumont," Jack went on expressionlessly, still looking at his hands. "She married him four years ago. They've got kids, but the cops wouldn't tell me about them. I have to wait for her to get here, then I guess she'll tell me." At last he looked up, a grin splitting his features. "I can't wait to see her."

"Of course. Jack, this is wonderful news," beamed Kylie.

"Will you come with me to see her?"

The smile vanished completely from her face, and her voice became a strangled croak as she asked, in panicked tones, "What?"

"Kylie, please." He stood up and gazed beseechingly down at her. "I'm so nervous."

"She's your mom," reasoned Kylie.

"Well yeah, but… I can't travel through Manhattan all by myself. I'm not ready for that yet. And besides, I want Mom to see you. You're the one who found me."

"Yeah…"

"Kylie?"

She raised her eyes to meet his gaze. He wasn't smiling anymore. He looked anxious, like the child he was inside.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Don't you have any idea what happened to my dad?" Jack asked quietly.

Kylie shook her head. "I'm sorry, Jack – I really don't. I didn't even know he and your mom weren't together anymore. I haven't seen them since… since the night it happened."

"Right." Jack sat down again. "So… will you come with me tomorrow?"

Kylie let out a deep sigh. How could she possibly say no to him? "Yes," she said, forcing a smile, her stomach twisting itself into a tight knot. "Of course I will."

_To be continued…_


	2. Chapter 2

_Extreme Ghostbusters: _**A Little Boy Lost**

Part 2

**11:00 am:**

"Oh my God, it's her!"

"Kylie," Roland said patiently, turning round to face her as she ducked furtively behind his back. "Of course it's her. She's the person you're here to see."

"No she isn't," hissed Kylie, keeping her voice low. "I'm here for Jack."

They were at JFK Airport, which was typically buzzing with activity. Roland, Kylie and Jack had arrived together. Kylie had insisted that Roland go with them, adamant that she would need at least as much moral support as Jack did, and he hadn't the heart to refuse. Jack had looked surprised to see him, but he didn't say anything.

Sandra Beaumont-_nee-_Ryan had just torn into the lobby, wide-eyed and breathless. She had changed over the years – her hair was shorter, she wore more makeup and had for some reason taken to dressing in a tailored jacket and pencil skirt – but Jack recognised her straightaway. She recognised him too, of course, and by the time Kylie squeaked out her alarm they were running into each other's arms.

"Come on." Kylie signalled to Jack when he spared her a glance, and then beckoned Roland to follow her to the nearest cup of coffee. Though she was not particularly fond of the beverage, she had often observed that her father always seemed to consume vast quantities of caffeine at times of stress, and right now she was prepared to try anything. "We should leave them alone for a while."

Minutes later they were sitting at a small table, surrounded by movement and loud, indiscernible chatter. They each clutched a steaming Styrofoam cup, the familiar smell of coffee snaking through the air, the heat seeping through the flimsy material and loosening their fingers, though the warmth failed to comfort Kylie. She just stared down at the muddy beverage for a long time, chewing her bottom lip, her breath becoming increasingly heavier and more audible. Roland looked at her hands, which were clutching desperately at the cup, and noticed that they were shaking.

"Kylie." He reached across the table and put a comforting hand on her wrist. "Calm down – you're shaking."

Kylie opened her mouth, but found that she was unable to speak. Instead she just shook her head, not meeting Roland's gaze.

"Take some deep breaths," he said soothingly, quietly rather alarmed by Kylie's reaction to the situation, but he didn't let it show. She would never calm down if he did. "Come on, Ky – breathe. What's this all about?"

She took his advice and breathed deeply a few times, until finally she was able to speak. However her voice was cracked and unsteady as she said, in whimpering tones, "Why the hell did I agree to this, Roland? I can't see her again – I just can't!"

"Why not?" Roland asked calmly.

"Because she hates me. She's probably hated me for the past ten years. I just can't face her."

"You said you'd do it for Jack."

"I know." Kylie sighed deeply. "It's going to be _awful_. That woman hates me, Roland. She _really_ hates me. After Jack disappeared… Oh, God – what am I going to say to her?"

"Maybe," Roland said slowly, "she's just grateful that you found her son."

"It's my fault it happened."

"_What_? No it isn't!"

"Sure it is," Kylie insisted. "The Grundle wanted _me_, remember."

"Well, ok, but Jack's mother doesn't know that," Roland pointed out.

"I'm sure she doesn't know about the Grundle," Kylie said quietly, "but she knows it was my fault. Nobody told her that – nobody _knew_ – but somehow she just knows."

x x x

"_All right, Kylie." This policeman was a lady. Kylie liked her better than the policeman who was a man, and who was sitting next to the lady, opposite her and Daddy. "Please tell us what happened this evening, after Jack came to play."_

"_We were playing ball," Kylie began slowly. "In the living room." She looked sideways at Daddy. She knew that Daddy didn't like her playing with balls in the house. But he didn't say anything, and he didn't look angry. So Kylie went on: "I turned round to get the ball, because Jack threw it over my head, and then he ran off. I followed him, and he went into my room. He was by the window. I told him not to open it. I told him!"_

_She was starting to shout, and Daddy put his hand on her shoulder again. The lady policeman smiled at her. She said, "Just take your time, honey."_

"_Your great-grandmother told us that she thought she heard you shouting, 'Don't open the window'," said the man policeman. "Did you say that to Jack, Kylie?"_

_Kylie nodded._

"_Why?" asked the man policeman._

_Kylie said nothing. She could feel Daddy looking at her, but she didn't look back at him._

"_Was there something out there?" the lady policeman asked._

_Kylie nodded again._

"_What was it, honey?"_

"_A… a monster."_

_The man policeman looked very surprised, and so did the lady policeman a little bit. They looked at each other. Then the lady policeman asked, "Are you sure?"_

_Kylie nodded again._

"_What did it look like?" asked the lady policeman. Kylie could tell that she didn't believe her about the monster._

"_Tall, like him." She pointed at the man policeman. "It had long arms, and a big mouth. And it had a coat and a hat on."_

"_WHAT?" Daddy suddenly shouted, and Kylie looked at him in surprise._

"_So you saw him through the window?" the lady policeman asked._

_Kylie nodded._

"_Did you… did you know he would be there?"_

"_He's always there," Kylie said quietly._

"_Always?" the man policeman asked sharply._

"_At night," Kylie went on. She wanted to stop, but the policemen were looking at her so hard, she just couldn't. "He stands outside my window, and he says…"_

_The lady policeman looked very white, like Daddy. Daddy looked even whiter than he had looked when he arrived. The lady policeman asked, "What does he say?"_

"_He says, 'Come out and play.'"_

"_Oh my God!" cried Daddy. "Every night? Kylie, why didn't you tell me? Did you tell Grandma Rose?"_

_Kylie shook her head._

"_Why not?" asked the lady policeman._

"_I don't know."_

"_Oh my God…" whispered Daddy._

_The man policeman was frowning at Daddy. The lady policeman was still staring at Kylie. She asked, "Did he take Jack?"_

_Kylie didn't know what to say. The monster didn't take Jack. Jack had turned into a monster himself. He had turned round and hissed at her… or growled… or something. She couldn't remember. But the policemen would never believe that, any of it, so Kylie said quietly, "I don't know. I didn't see."_

"_What did Jack do? Did he climb out the window?" asked the man policeman._

_Kylie nodded. She remembered Jack climbing out of the window, and… "He ran away," she added. She remembered him running away._

"_Did this man chase him?" asked the man policeman._

"_I don't know," said Kylie. "It was dark out. And it wasn't a man – I told you."_

"_Kylie," said Daddy. "How long has there been someone outside your window at night?"_

"_I don't know," Kylie said again. "Days."_

_Soon after that, she and Daddy were allowed to go. Kylie went to Grandma Rose, who was waiting for her. The man policeman asked Daddy to stay behind, and he said some things that Kylie couldn't hear._

_Jack's mommy and daddy were still there. Jack's daddy walked over to Kylie and asked, "Did you tell them everything you saw?"_

_Kylie didn't answer._

"_What did you tell them?"_

"_I just told them what I saw."_

"_What was that?"_

"_Daniel…" said Grandma Rose. "Just let the police do their job."_

_Jack's daddy ignored her. "Did you tell them absolutely everything?" he asked._

_For a few seconds, Kylie couldn't move. Then, finally, she nodded. But Jack's daddy looked like he didn't believe she was telling him the truth. He was right. She had not told them that Jack was a monster now._

_Jack's mommy came over to her. She hadn't said anything, only cried, since she came to the police station. But now she suddenly started screaming: "You know something, don't you! You know something that you haven't told them!"_

"_Sandra!" exclaimed Grandma Rose._

"_You're a wicked child!" shouted Jack's mommy. "You're an evil, wicked little girl! You have to tell us what happened!"_

_She was crying so much that she probably couldn't see. She reached out and Kylie stepped back in alarm, but Jack's mommy grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard._

"_TELL US!" she screamed._

_Some policemen started coming towards them, but they stopped when Daddy arrived, just as Jack's daddy pulled Jack's mommy away from Kylie._

"_She told the police everything, Sandra," said Daddy. "I think you need to go home now."_

"_What did she say?" asked Jack's daddy._

_Daddy opened his mouth, but he didn't answer Jack's daddy's question. Kylie knew he thought that it was a man who came to her window every night, not a monster. He didn't tell Jack's daddy. He probably thought Jack's daddy would shout at him again._

"_She hardly saw anything," Daddy finally told Jack's daddy. "It's late, Dan. I have to take her home."_

x x x

The relief that Jack had felt upon seeing his mother was overwhelming. He just wanted her to hold him and never let go, but he had to be careful in the middle of the airport. He remembered what Kylie had said to him that morning: he had to try and behave like an adult. His mother didn't know that he hadn't really grown up.

When she hugged him, it felt so familiar, just as it had all those years ago, though to Jack those years seemed like only days. She didn't let go of him for a long time. She just held him close to her and sobbed, murmuring quietly, "Oh my God, Jack – it's really you."

"Of course it's me," he said quietly.

"Jack… oh, Jack…" Finally she pushed him gently away, and gazed up into his face. She gave a dry little laugh as she said, "You're taller than me."

"Yeah."

"Jack… where have you _been_?"

"I can't remember," Jack replied truthfully. That was another thing Kylie had said to him: do not mention monsters on any account. "I'm sorry, Mom. I can't remember."

"It's ok." She pulled him close to her again. "It's ok, baby."

Roland and Kylie watched them from a distance, Roland smiling slightly at the touching scene. They were silent for some moments, until Kylie said quietly, her voice choked with emotion, "I'm so glad he found her."

"Yeah."

"I do wonder about…"

"About what?" asked Roland, swivelling in his chair to face her. "His dad?"

Kylie simply nodded.

"I don't know what to say," said Roland.

"There's nothing _to_ say."

She glanced down at her coffee, none of which she had yet drunk, and when she looked up again her heart froze. Jack and Sandra were no longer face-to-face, but were looking directly at her.

"What's wrong?" asked Roland, alarmed when he caught sight of her expression.

"They're coming this way!" Kylie croaked. She sounded terrified.

Sure enough Jack was leading his mother towards them, beaming happily. Sandra, on the other hand, did not look pleased. At her approach Kylie stood up suddenly, her chair toppling over backwards at the force of her movement and hitting the ground with a loud clatter. A small wave of coffee slopped over the side of the Styrofoam cup as the table jerked, but Kylie either didn't notice this or she didn't care. She just stared at Jack's mother, her eyes wide, her whole body trembling.

"Kylie," Sandra said simply.

Kylie took a few short, sharp breaths and then managed to stammer out, "M-M-Mrs. Ryan… h-h-hi."

"Hi," Sandra returned coldly. "Jack tells me you found him."

"I… I…"

"That's correct," Roland intervened, rising to his feet.

"Who are you?" demanded Sandra.

"Roland Jackson. I'm a friend of Kylie's. I was there when Jack was found."

"Where was this?" Sandra asked him sharply. "Where did you find him?"

"Um… in my backyard," Roland confessed, perhaps a little sheepishly.

Suddenly Kylie's knees gave way. She wanted to sink back into the chair, which was now horizontal on the ground, so she simply clutched at the table for support. She had no control over her own body and her throat was as dry as a desert. She'd had no idea that seeing Jack's mother again would affect her so strongly.

"In your back…?"

"Mom," Jack interrupted sharply. "It doesn't matter now. I'm back."

"Yes." Sandra was looking at Kylie through narrowed eyes with deep suspicion. "I know, honey. We should talk. There are things I need to tell you."

"I know you had more kids."

"How do you know that?" asked Sandra, surprised, suddenly jerking her eyes away from Kylie.

"The police told me."

"Right, well…"

"And I know you aren't with Dad anymore. Where is he, Mom? What happened to him? The police can't find him."

"They can't?" Sandra asked sharply, her neatly plucked eyebrows shooting skyward. "Ah, honey… a lot happened while you were gone. I don't know where your father is. I'm sorry." She cut another hateful glance at Kylie and added, "Let's get out of here, shall we?"

Jack allowed his mother to drag him away, leaving Roland to deal with Kylie in her state of shock. He picked up the chair and urged Kylie to sit down on it, which she readily did.

"She wants to kill me," Kylie murmured quietly.

"Of course she doesn't," Roland said dismissively. "She didn't look happy to see you, though. I don't understand what her problem with you is."

"She knows. She knows I know what happened, and that it was my fault."

"Well… I'm sure she'll come round. Do you wanna get out of here?"

"Ha," Kylie laughed, dryly and humourlessly. "I didn't even drink the damn coffee after all that."

"You want it?" asked Roland.

"No." She shook her head. "I would like you to take me home now, please."

x x x

"It feels strange," said Sandra, "being back in New York after all this time."

They had gone to Central Park. It was relatively quiet there. The sound of traffic, people, dogs… all of that was little more than a distant hum. Jack, who had grown up (or at least begun to) with the noises of the city, found it strangely comforting. His mother, on the other hand, seemed to have forgotten it. The thick, unclean air stuck in her throat like an unpleasant taste, and Jack noticed the way she pulled her jacket around herself. Why had she come without a coat? He knew California was supposed to be hot for almost the entire year, but surely his mother hadn't forgotten that New York wasn't like that. She seemed like a complete stranger here. She must have settled completely and easily into her new life in Sacramento.

"Why don't you have a coat?" asked Jack, as they strolled through the park.

Sandra looked at him. She seemed to think it a strange question. Finally she said, "I didn't bring anything. I didn't have time. As soon as I got the call I drove straight to the airport and wouldn't leave the staff alone until I could get a flight over here. I didn't even stop to find a parking spot – when I get home I'm probably going to find that my car has been crushed to a cube."

"Oh no," remarked Jack. He knew, like every kid of his western urban culture, that people aged upwards of sixteen valued cars extremely highly.

"Honey." She grabbed his arm and squeezed it. "It's just a car. It isn't important. Nothing is important now that I've got you back."

"Not even your new family?"

"Ah."

Sandra veered off to the left, pulling Jack gently towards an empty park bench. They sat down, and she pulled a wallet out of her jacket pocket. She didn't open it, though – just held it for a few seconds. Finally she asked, "Would you like to see some pictures?"

"Sure."

"This is Ted, my husband." She rifled through the wallet, and then handed her son a small photograph of a sandy-haired man who looked to be in his mid-thirties. "He's a little younger than me – you can probably tell."

"Do you love him?" asked Jack.

Again, Sandra looked surprised. But she didn't hesitate with her answer: "Of course."

"But what about Dad?" Jack wanted to know.

"Ah, Jack," his mother sighed. "We fell apart after you disappeared. We both had counselling – we went together – but we just couldn't be around each other anymore."

"Why?"

"I don't know. It just all went sour. We coped with what happened to you… well… differently. Your father was so angry. When the police didn't find anything, he said we should look for you ourselves. And that's what he did. One day he announced that he was going to find you. He said I could go with him if I wanted to."

"Didn't you go?"

"No. Jack, you know I wanted to find you – I would have given anything to have you back – but how could he and I find you by ourselves? Our marriage was already beyond repair, so I let him go. That… was the last I saw of him," she finished quietly.

"So where is he now?" demanded Jack. "Why can't the cops find him?"

"I don't know," Sandra replied evenly. "I'm sorry, Jack, I just… I don't know."

Jack pursed his lips and sucked in his breath through his nose. His father was missing. He could be anywhere – he could be _dead_! It was a horrible thought, and with everything that had happened Jack didn't feel up to pursuing it, at least not yet. He changed the subject: "What about you? Why did you move away?"

"I couldn't stand being here," his mother replied. "Everything I saw reminded me of you."

"You wanted to forget me?"

"No! I missed you every single day. Moving away didn't make me miss you any less, but I had to move on eventually. Can you understand that?"

Jack was silent for a few moments. He couldn't understand what his disappearance had been like for anybody. His young mind could only imagine that his mother had started a new life in order to try and erase the old one. But of course, the old one had been taken away from her. Of course she had to start again. Maybe he did understand, to some extent. He nodded.

"Well," Sandra went on, her voice beginning to waver slightly, "I moved to the opposite side of the country and spent a couple of years at college. That's where I met Ted. He was widowed – he was trying to get his life back on track too."

"And," Jack put in, "you cut your hair and changed all of your clothes."

"Oh, well." She looked down at her neatly ironed executive suit. "I might have had my hair cut anyway if you hadn't disappeared, and I was still here with you and your father. And I don't normally dress like this. This is for work. I've got one of those office jobs with a lot of random typing. It pays well and keeps me busy."

"Do you like it?"

"It's all right. I have some good friends there."

"Oh. Good."

"I'm still the same person," Sandra continued gently. "I'm still your mom. Through all of it I never, even for a second, stopped being utterly devastated about what happened to you. You have to believe that. Even falling in love with Ted didn't stop the pain, and neither did having Toby."

"Your kid? How old is he?" asked Jack.

"Two-and-a-half," replied Sandra, the ghost of a smile haunting the corners of her mouth at last. "He's a beautiful baby, your little brother. Now before you think it, Jack, I didn't have him to replace you. I always loved you and missed you. Toby didn't fill the void you left – I never hoped that he would – he's something completely separate from you."

"Ok."

"Would you like to see a picture?"

"Sure."

Really smiling now, Sandra handed Jack another picture. Toby Beaumont looked, Jack thought, much like any other two year old. He was a chubby little boy with chestnut hair, long-lashed hazel eyes and a disarming smile. He was cute, and Jack couldn't help smiling. He resembled his mother more than his father, Jack thought.

He handed back the photograph and said bluntly, "The cops said kids, as in more than one."

"Ah," Sandra nodded slowly. "They must have come across Deborah's name. She isn't mine. Her mother died when she was little. She was five when I married Ted. I don't think she was sure about me at first, but we get along very well now."

"Does she call you Mom?"

"No."

"You got a picture?"

"I do, actually."

As Toby was in Deborah's photograph, attempting to poke the raven-haired girl in the eye, Jack assumed that this was the only picture of her in his mother's wallet. Perhaps that meant she didn't feel as close to her as she did to Toby or Ted. Deborah was smiling down at Toby, who sat cross-legged on her lap; she was holding her little brother's wrist – well, half-brother really, Jack corrected himself – to keep his fat little forefinger at bay. She was an absolutely beautiful little girl. Her hair was long and sleek, her dark eyes full of life and her face wreathed in smiles.

"How old is she?" asked Jack.

"Nine. Isn't she beautiful?"

"I guess."

"She looks so like her mother's photographs it's scary. Ted's always talking about it: 'Sometimes I could swear I'm looking at Susie.'"

Jack looked up sharply. "You don't have a picture of _her_ in there, do you?"

"Of course not. How morbid do you think I am?"

"Your new family is… perfect."

"We're far from perfect," Sandra smiled slightly. "I love them, though. And there's a place in it for you. There always has been, just in case you ever came back."

"Didn't you think I would?"

"I hoped you would. I never gave up hope. I still carry pictures of you in this thing, you know, if that's what you're looking so upset about."

"I'm not upset," said Jack. It was making him feel uneasy for some reason, which he couldn't understand, but of course it didn't upset him to know that his mother had people who loved her. "I'm glad you're happy."

"I'm twice as happy now. No, more than that… I'm whole again."

They were silent for a few moments. Jack looked again at the picture of the two children. He suddenly had a half-brother and a stepsister, both technically younger than he was, but he almost certainly lacked Deborah's maturity. He wondered how hard it would be, trying to fit into a new family and be an older brother.

"Jack," ventured Sandra. "Do you really not remember anything that happened?"

"I really don't," Jack replied quietly, not feeling comfortable with the lie. Well, technically it wasn't a lie – he didn't remember – but he knew what had happened to him. He wanted to tell his mother, but he was sensible enough at least to realise that he had to keep the true story of what happened to him a secret from everyone.

"It's ok," said Sandra, grabbing his hand. "We'll figure it out."

"What?"

"There are people who can help you remember. We'll find out what really happened to you."

Jack's eyes widened. People who could help him? What did she mean by that? She was obviously determined to find out the truth, which was an alarming prospect, because he couldn't let her. Finally he asked, his voice barely audible, "Why?"

"Because it's important for us to know."

"Why?"

"It matters."

"Why? I'm back. It doesn't matter where I've been."

"Jack! Yes it _does_! Come on." She stood up suddenly and grabbed Jack's hand, pulling him to his feet. "Are you ready to go home?"

"Home?" echoed Jack. "To California?"

"Of course."

"I… I have to say goodbye to Kylie."

"Oh." Sandra's eyes narrowed. "Kylie. Right."

"And… and her friends."

"All right," Sandra said irritably, her face falling into a scowl. "All right."

x x x

"Jack, hi!" Janine Melnitz greeted the visitor enthusiastically, standing up and walking round her desk. "And this must be your mom. Hi, I'm Janine."

"Hello," Sandra smiled politely. "Yes, I'm Jack's mom – Sandra. We've come to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?"

"He's coming to Sacramento with me."

"Oh, well, it'll be nice to see your family again," Janine said to Jack.

"I haven't met them yet," he replied.

"Oh, well…" Janine said again, her smile faltering. Kylie, quite rightly, hadn't divulged too much of Jack's personal information to her colleagues. "It'll be nice to meet them, then. Um, Jack, I'm afraid Kylie isn't here."

"_What_?" exclaimed Sandra. "We don't have time to run all over New York looking for her! I have to get home!"

"It's all right – she's at her apartment," Janine said soothingly. "I'll call her if you like. I'm sure she'd come here to say goodbye to you, Jack."

"Will you?" asked Jack. "Please. Thanks, Janine. Are the others upstairs?"

"Yes."

"Come on, Mom – I want you to meet the people who found me."

Upstairs, Sandra found herself looking at three young men and one older one. Jack reeled off their names as he gestured towards each of them in turn: "Mom, this is Egon Spengler, Eduardo Rivera and Garrett Miller. You met Roland."

"Roland, yes, hi," Sandra smiled politely at Roland, pleasantly surprised that he had stood up upon her arrival. The older man had already been standing – he did straighten, though – and the poor lad in the wheelchair obviously couldn't, but the other one just didn't bother. He barely even looked at her. "I'm sorry about how I came across earlier. I'm not usually like that – you caught me at a strange time."

"Of course," said Roland. "I quite understand."

"I really am grateful to you for finding Jack," added Sandra. "_All_ of you. I don't know how to thank you enough."

"We need no more thanks than that," Egon cut in. He wanted to say more – to try and explain what had happened to Jack to his poor mother, who must be desperate to know – but Kylie had warned him not to. On no account, he had been told, would this woman accept any explanation that involved monsters. Slimer, Egon suddenly realised, was strangely absent. That was a shame: if only Mrs. Ryan, or whatever her name was, could have seen him – perhaps she might have been persuaded.

"I came to say goodbye," announced Jack. "I'm going with Mom to Sacramento."

"You are?" asked Garrett, his eyebrows shooting skyward. "Well, it was fun while it lasted. We didn't have much of a chance to get to know you."

"Kylie's gonna be bummed," added Eduardo.

"I'll stay in touch," Jack assured them. "And I expect we'll visit some- "

"Where _is_ Kylie, anyway?" Sandra interrupted. "We have to get out of here. I left without even saying goodbye, and my son is two! I had to call and make childcare arrangements from the plane – he must want me home."

"Kylie's at home," offered Roland. "Do you want us to -?"

"The secretary has already called her," said Sandra. "Thank you. I assume she's on her way."

Now, apparently, there was nothing for them to do but wait. Egon, thinking that he ought to do something with his guests, invited Sandra and Jack to sit down and enquired as to whether there was anything they would like. Sandra, who incidentally chose to stay standing, gave an unexpected and somewhat stumping reply: "I would like to know where my son has been for the past ten years."

"Ah, well…" Egon mumbled awkwardly.

"Where do you live, anyway?" demanded Sandra, looking suddenly at Roland.

"Does it matter?" Roland asked nervously.

"Certainly it does," replied Sandra, keeping her tone neutral. "It was where my son was found. Were you all there?"

No one spoke. Finally, when the gaping silence threatened to swallow them all up, Garrett spoke: "Egon wasn't. The rest of us were."

"So what happened?" Sandra asked impatiently.

At this point Eduardo decided to intervene. He looked up sharply and asked, "Haven't you talked to the police?"

Sandra frowned. "It was the police that called me," she said curtly.

"Well," Eduardo went on, in tones of exaggerated patience, "Kylie and Roland told the police everything that happened. If you talk to them again, they will tell you everything you need to know… if they haven't already. All right?"

"No," snapped Sandra. "I've heard that before."

Eduardo raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"I'm sure they didn't tell us everything there was to know when Jack disappeared," replied Sandra, forcing the etiquette back into her tone.

"Probably not," muttered Garrett, quietly wondering whether he should have told this woman that he and Eduardo had been present when Jack was found. They had not spoken to the police, which they probably should have done – and would have, had this been an ordinary missing person case. However, given the nature of Jack's disappearance, they had agreed to play the whole story down considerably. It was likely that Kylie hadn't told the police who was present at the discovery, as that was likely to lead to questions to which the only answers involved monsters. Oops…

"Maybe you should go talk to the cops now, before you leave," Eduardo suggested. "It's gonna be a few minutes before Kylie even gets here. They didn't tell you everything over the phone, did they?"

"No, they certainly did not."

"Just an idea."

"It's a good idea, actually," mused Sandra, her brow furrowing in thought – considerably more thought, perhaps, than the situation warranted. "Jack, honey, will you be ok here if I nip to the police station?"

"Sure," said Jack. Truthfully he never wanted his mother to leave his side again, but he knew that she would have to eventually, besides which he got the feeling that it might be best if she managed to avoid Kylie. Anyway, she'd come back again. Of course she would come back again. "I'll be fine."

"Would you like a lift?" offered Roland.

Sandra had warmed to Roland since their first meeting, and she was touched. "I would, actually," she said, "if you're sure you don't mind."

Roland, quite characteristically, assured her that he didn't mind, and they left immediately.

"Jack," ventured Egon, some minutes later, when the distant roar of Roland's Mustang from the street below had subsided. "How do you think your mother would react if you told her the truth?"

"She'd never believe it," Jack replied at once. "She really, _really_ wants to know what happened to me, though."

"Of course she does," said Garrett.

"I don't know what to do," sighed Jack. He was finding it confusing, terrifying even, suddenly having to bear the weight of so much responsibility.

"Don't worry about it," Eduardo advised breezily. "She'll drop it eventually."

The conversation pretty much died after that, and they sat in uncomfortable silence until Kylie turned up. She dashed into the room, wide-eyed and out of breath. Jack was sitting with his back to the door, so he didn't see her arrival. He heard it, though, and rose to his feet.

"Jack!" exclaimed Kylie, skidding to halt in front of him. She got straight to the point. "You're leaving?"

"Yes," Jack replied sadly. He had seen plenty of his old friend over the last couple of days but now, looking down into her big green eyes, he realised that he didn't want to leave her just yet. "I have to go with Mom."

"Of course," Kylie nodded, sinking onto the nearest arm of the sofa. "Of course you do. Ach – this hardly seems fair. I only just got you back."

"I'll call you every day," Jack said generously.

"Every day?" Kylie laughed slightly. "No you won't."

"Sure I will."

"Oh, Jack, you don't have to. E-mail me."

Jack looked blank. "Do what?"

"Oh… yeah." Kylie rose to her feet and headed for the stairs, beckoning Jack to follow. "Jack, while you were away, computers took over the world. Let me show you some of the things they can do."

**Half an hour later:**

The Mustang pulled up inside the firehouse; the doors flew open and Roland and Sandra climbed out. Kylie, demonstrating the Internet to Jack at Janine's computer (he had quite a nasty headache by this time) looked up enquiringly. She caught Roland's eye and raised her eyebrows. Jack had volunteered the information that his mother had gone with Roland to the police station about ten minutes ago, when he realised that Kylie wasn't going to enquire. Roland just shrugged, and made for the stairs: he didn't know what had gone on between Sandra and the police. Still, whatever it was, Sandra's expression suggested that it had not been what she'd hoped.

"Jack, baby," ventured Sandra, as she approached the reception desk. "We have to go as soon as possible. Have you been to the bathroom?"

"No," replied Jack. "I don't need to go to the bathroom."

"Yes, you do – you haven't been for hours. Go on."

Just for a moment, Kylie was transported back to the early nineteen eighties. Jack sloped off to the bathroom under his mother's stern gaze and then, quite suddenly, they were back in the present. Sandra was no longer just Jack's mommy. She was a wronged woman who hated Kylie for reasons no one was quite sure of – probably not even herself – and she did not look happy.

"Listen," Sandra snarled, in a low voice, leaning over the desk and moving her face uncomfortably close to Kylie's. "I know there's something you haven't told me."

"I told you everything," lied Kylie. It was a knee-jerk reaction, but she wouldn't have wanted to say anything else even if she could.

"I don't believe you," snapped Sandra. "You know something – you always have. Did you tell the police?"

"I told the police everything."

"Perhaps you did. They're keeping something from me – I know it."

"Mrs. Ryan, please!" begged Kylie. "Jack was… _is_ my friend! If I had known _anything_ that could help find him, don't you think I would have told you?"

Sandra's eyes narrowed. "There's more to this than meets the eye. Kylie, you were there. Please tell me."

"I… I can't remember."

Sandra snorted derisively. "You as well?"

"I must have seen what happened to Jack that day," Kylie faltered, "but whatever it was, I blocked it from my memory." That, at least, had once been true.

"Really?" asked Sandra. She looked unsure, like she didn't know whether to believe Kylie or not. "Well, if that's true, it must have been something terrib-… oh, Jack, hi. Ready to go?"

"I guess," shrugged Jack.

With a heavy heart, Kylie rose to her feet and made her way around the desk. She wrapped her arms around Jack's waist and he encircled her shoulders in his, each giving the other a gentle, affectionate squeeze.

"I'm gonna miss you," said Kylie, her voice wavering. There was a lump in her throat and tears pricked the backs of her eyes. "But at least I'll know where you are this time, huh?"

"Yeah. I'll, um… e-mail."

Kylie laughed. "Me too." She pulled gently away and gazed up into his face, keeping her hands on him, and asked uncertainly, "Still no sign of…?"

Jack knew what she meant. He shook her head.

"Well." She dropped her arms and took a step back. "Good luck."

"Thanks," smiled Jack, aware of his mother waiting impatiently for him by the exit. "Goodbye."

"You mean _au revoir_."

"Um… sure."

She watched him to the door, understandably worried about what lay in store for him. On the inside, Jack was still just a child: there was a lot he didn't know besides the difference between goodbye and _au revoir_. Kylie sighed, telling herself that he would be fine. He had always been a bright kid – he'd catch up… well, soon enough. It wasn't even as though he didn't have help; he had been reunited with his mother. But of course, that train of thought led to another worry…

"Eduardo," ventured Kylie, sitting down beside him on the sofa. "The police still haven't found Jack's father. What might that mean?"

"I… guess it means he's missing," Eduardo replied hesitantly. He didn't feel the urge to say _maybe he's dead_. Even he could see that, this time, it really was not appropriate. "I don't really know a lot about this stuff, Ky."

"You've obviously picked up something, though. Come on, be honest with me. What does it mean?"

"I don't know. He might be using a different name, or he might have left the country without telling anybody, or he might be - "

"Dead?"

"Um, well… he might be."

"He might be dead, and no one knows. Like, he might have committed suicide or… or something."

"Kylie." He glanced down at her arm that was resting on the back of the sofa, and noticed the nervous twitching of her fingers. After a moment's deliberation he dared to put his hand over hers. She didn't object. "There's no reason to assume that."

"Will they keep looking for him?" asked Kylie.

"I guess so," Eduardo replied gently. "I mean, why wouldn't they?"

"What if he _is_ dead?" Kylie asked desperately. "That's a horrible thing for _anybody_ to come back to… their dad, dead, way before his time… and especially Jack because he's really still just a kid."

"Yeah, well." Eduardo withdrew his consoling hand and snapped his eyes away from the concern in Kylie's face. This was not a comfortable topic for him. "You know what cops are like. The guy's probably married with six more kids and still in New York and they can't find him because his name is spelt wrong on a file somewhere."

Kylie sighed. "That would be nice," she said. "It's unlikely, but it would be nice."

_To be continued…_


	3. Chapter 3

_Extreme Ghostbusters: _**A Little Boy Lost**

Part 3

"This is really nice."

Sandra smiled. "Thanks. Yeah, it is."

"It's not like home." He caught the look on his mother's face, and added hastily, "I mean, where we used to live."

"Oh." She nodded. "No, it's not like that."

Jack, in spite of the change he had seen in his mother's appearance, had for some reason expected her home to look all but identical to the two up/two down terrace he had lived in as a child. He remembered it well: colourful wallpaper, scruffy carpets, toys strewn around the floor – at least two or three in every room. His father had been a mechanic, and the whole place used to smell of motor oil. This place smelt more artificial, like air freshener or soap powder or something.

Sandra led Jack through to the living room. He winced slightly when he saw a trio of identical white leather sofas that looked like they had never been sat on. The walls were white too, and there was no carpet, just pine floorboards that matched the pine units. There were flowers too, which sat neatly in a glass vase on a glass-topped coffee table and – Jack couldn't help noticing – matched the walls and sofas.

"You like this stuff?" asked Jack, in tones of utter astonishment.

"I thought I'd try being tidy and see how it suited me," replied Sandra. "I do like it, yes. It makes me feel like… well, like I'm in control, like there's order to my life. Do you understand?"

"Not really," Jack confessed.

"It's hard to explain – I don't think I can. Before you get any ideas, _I _don't keep the place this neat: I haven't the time. We have a cleaner who comes in twice a week."

"You must be rich."

"We're comfortably off. Deborah helps out around the house as well. She's so sweet. You'll see her when she comes home from school."

Jack was silent. He didn't dare sit down on that pristine furniture.

"It's not all like this," Sandra assured him. She led her son through an immaculate white kitchen to a refreshingly untidy little playroom that was neatly tucked away at the back of the house. "This is where Toby hangs out. Deborah's got some stuff in here too. She plays with Tobes a lot."

"Where _is_ Toby?" asked Jack. "When I was two I used to spend all day with you. What did you do with him?"

Sandra's gaze dropped slightly. "Toby doesn't spend all day with me. He goes to a childminder – she's got him now. Actually I'd better go call her and tell her I'm home. I'll ask her to bring Toby home when she picks up Deb from school."

She made her way back through the kitchen and out into the hallway, Jack following like a puppy. There was a telephone out there. A white one. It was improbably clean. Jack didn't much care for it. As Sandra picked up the receiver he asked, "Why don't you want Toby home now?"

"I want to spend some more time alone with you," Sandra replied at once. "And I don't want to ask Sally to do two trips."

"Oh. Ok."

"I'll just be a minute, baby, ok?" She started to dial. "Go back through to the kitchen and make yourself comfortable. Find something to eat if you're hungry."

He found a chocolate bar in the fridge. He considered for a moment that it might belong to Toby or Deborah, but then he reasoned that they had probably already had plenty of chocolate recently – certainly in the last ten years. Besides, it wasn't as though this stuff was in short supply – they could always buy more.

Jack sat down at the pine table, ripped the wrapper from the bar and bit into it. He chewed slowly and let the chocolate melt over his tongue, enjoying the sensation for a few moments. Soon, however, he stopped. He took another bite and did it again. This time, he let out a deep sigh and pushed the remaining seven eighths of the chocolate bar away. Toby and Deborah could have it. Candy used to taste better than that, he was sure. Apparently his tongue had matured with the rest of his body. It still tasted good, but it wasn't everything it used to be.

Jack put his head in his hands and gazed at the floor. He wanted to cry. Nothing was the same for him anymore. Absolutely nothing. Kylie had changed; his mother had changed; his house, which looked like some kind of show home, was on totally the wrong side of the country… and he just didn't want to think about what might have become of his father. And now it seemed that even chocolate, something he really thought he could rely on, had changed as well. So what did that mean? Were there no pleasures for him in this guise as an adult? As a child he had loved all kinds of junk food. Perhaps now he wouldn't be able to enjoy any of them.

Sandra walked in, and Jack looked up sharply. She fixed him with a smile that was just filled with emotion: relief, gratitude, disbelief, concern and love. She sat down next to him and grabbed his hand.

"I love you so much, honey," she said, in a choked voice. "You know that, don't you?"

Jack nodded, finally able to smile. "I love you too," he said.

After that, the conversation grew more uncomfortable. They talked about all kinds of things – the past, the present and what might happen in the future – but wherever the discussion went, Sandra always managed to steer it back to the issue of where her son had been for the last decade. Finally, Jack lost patience.

"I don't know!" he exclaimed. "Mom, I told you: I don't remember where I've been or what I've been doing!"

"W-well," Sandra stammered, taken aback, "I told you there are people who can - "

"I don't want to see a shrink," retorted Jack. "There are more important things I have to do. Whatever I've been doing, I _don't_ think I was in school. Mom, I can barely read! I can count but I never even finished learning how to add up! I don't know anything! I need to go back to school! I'm supposed to be a teenager but I _don't know anything_!"

"Calm down," Sandra said soothingly, when she saw the tears shining in her son's eyes. "I'm sorry, I… I didn't think of that. It's ok, Jack. We'll deal with it. You'll soon catch up."

Jack let out a deep sigh, and took a few moments to calm down. Then he said quietly, "I'm tired."

"Would you like to catch up on some sleep?"

"Yes please."

Sandra, still holding onto Jack's hand, led him up a pine staircase to what she termed "the spare – I mean, your room". Jack had expected it to be even barer than the rest of the house, but he was pleasantly surprised. The double bed had been made up with a blue-and-white striped quilt and pillowcase, a cute monkey toy sitting up smilingly on one of the pillows. There was a small pile of books on the dresser by the bed, most of which Jack knew he couldn't handle, but there were a few kids' books there as well. The small desk was topped with a vase of cheery yellow flowers, and a child's drawing of a widely smiling face had been taped to the door in a gesture of welcome. Jack was too tired to find any of this particularly puzzling; he assumed that the spare room must always look this way. His primary concern was with the bed, which looked to him extremely inviting. He lay down on top of the quilt (which really wasn't necessary, given the temperature), hugged the monkey to his chest and fell into an uneasy sleep.

Some hours later – he knew not how many – a light tap on the door awoke him. Jack scrambled into a sitting position, wondered where he was for a few moments and then called uncertainly, "Um, come in."

His visitor was a girl with a warm smile, long dark hair and soft brown eyes. Jack recognised her at once from her photo, as well as the grumpy looking toddler who followed her grudgingly into the room.

"Hi," Deborah Beaumont smiled pleasantly. "I'm Deborah. This is Toby. Tobes!" This grabbed the attention of the toddler, and she took hold of his fat little hand. "This is your brother Jack."

Toby looked dubiously at Jack, his big hazel eyes registering puzzlement and perhaps some disapproval. He looked so like his mother – _their_ mother – it was extraordinary. Jack tried smiling at him. Toby didn't respond.

"Say hello," hissed Deborah.

"Hello," Toby said robotically. Then, quite suddenly, he pulled his hand free of his sister's and rocketed out of the door.

"Sorry about him," Deborah smiled apologetically, crossing the room to sit on the bed beside Jack. "He's been missing Sandra."

"It's ok."

"So how are you feeling?"

She was still smiling. Jack wondered if she ever stopped. His first instinct was to say that he felt fine; but when he turned his head to look at his new stepsister, he saw that she was genuinely concerned, her gaze inviting him to tell her anything he wanted to.

"Tired," Jack said at last, "confused, and homesick."

"This is your home now," offered Deborah. "You'll soon get used to Sacramento."

"Yeah."

"You like the room?"

Jack nodded. "It's nice."

"I fixed it up for you yesterday. I commissioned the picture from Toby – I thought it would be easier for you if you felt welcome. And that's Gary." She gestured towards the monkey toy. "He's technically mine, but you can keep him if you want to."

Jack was overwhelmingly touched, and not just by the Gary gesture. "Thank you," he said. "Why Gary?"

Deborah laughed. "I don't know – I can't remember. I've had him since I was three. Jack…" – her smile flickered from friendliness to compassion. "I'm very sorry about what happened to you. It must be weird, being… well, back."

"It is," Jack assured her. "I feel so strange. I'm not used to being… well, I don't really remember anything since I was six." He stopped, snapped his gaze away from Deborah's face and pouted down at his clasped hands. Finally he said vehemently, "It's not fair."

"I know," Deborah said softly, putting a consoling hand on his arm.

"All that time is just… just… _gone_! It's not fair! I want it back!"

"I know," she said again, in the same gentle tone. "I'm sorry, Jack."

"All that time," Jack repeated. He felt tears pricking the backs of his eyes. "I haven't been to school, you know. Kylie – that's my friend in New York who found me – she told me to e-mail her, and she showed me how to do it. She must have forgotten I can't write that well, and I don't ever remember using a computer."

"You don't?" Deborah looked absolutely astonished. "Well, you'll soon get the hang of it – it's easy. Any moron can do it. When was it since you last wrote something – the eighties? Didn't they have computers in those days?"

At last Jack managed a small laugh. "Yes," he said. "One or two. Kylie says that every home has one now. We had a few at school, and some of the rich kids had them at home. They were different then, though."

"I'll show you ours." Deborah jumped to her feet. "Come on – we'll e-mail your friend Kylie. I'll help you, and maybe afterwards we can take a look at one of my books – you'll soon catch up on everything you missed."

She was still smiling, her eyes shining with enthusiasm. She was obviously desperate to help him, and Jack knew that he couldn't very well refuse. He rose to his feet and followed her to the door.

"You're very kind," he remarked.

"Why wouldn't I be kind to you?" Deborah grinned at him. "You're family now."

**Four weeks later:**

Garrett skidded dangerously through the meat and poultry aisle, swerving at the last second to avoid a display of breaded chicken breasts. He wasn't being reckless just for the sake of it: a small goblin had attached itself to the right wheel of his chair.

"Guys!" exclaimed Garrett, as he rounded the corner and just about avoided a collision with a shelf stacked full of breakfast cereals. Roland, Eduardo and Kylie looked up in surprise, and Garrett turned his chair slightly to show them the rear of the wheel. "I found it," he added unnecessarily.

Eduardo readied his proton gun, but Roland held up a restraining hand. "Get out of the chair," he advised.

Garrett dove to the ground, moving as far away from the chair, the goblin and the cereal as he could, just as the slippery little creature jumped like a monkey onto the nearest shelf. Garrett, once he had landed fairly heavily on the ground, quickly regained his composure and rolled into a sitting position.

"On three," he said, grabbing his proton gun.

"THREE!" they all exclaimed, and a moment later the goblin was writhing and hissing its way into a ghost trap.

"Oh dear," remarked Roland, as a few flakes of whole-wheat cereal and several little bits of scorched card fluttered to the ground like snow, settling on the blackened mound that was the last of that particular display. "That's coming right out of our cheque."

x x x

Once the team was in the Ecto-1 and Roland was driving back towards the firehouse, Kylie finally felt able to relax. The Ghostbusters had been called to quite a few cases since the Grundle escapade, and not all of them easy. The huge flying aquatic creature that had sped through New York destroying anything faintly mechanical and almost run amok at JFK Airport had been particularly taxing, and there had been smaller incidents too – like the goblin in the supermarket. That had to be the last one for a while, surely. Kylie very much hoped so, because she wanted to turn her attention to a far more pressing matter.

"Eduardo," she piped up suddenly, turning her head to meet his gaze. "How many missing people… missing persons… how many of them actually get found?"

"I don't know," Eduardo replied, somewhat impatiently, though he tried very hard not to snap at her. Truth be told, he was getting a little tired of Kylie constantly asking him questions very similar to this. He wanted to help her – he wanted very much to help her, in fact – but he just didn't have the answers she wanted.

Kylie seemed not to notice the irritation in his voice, and she persisted with her questioning: "It's not many though, is it?"

"I don't know," Eduardo said again. Then, "I don't think so."

"Will you ask your brother for me?"

He looked horrified. "Will I ask my brother for you?" he returned incredulously.

Kylie did something rare in giving him a winning smile. "Please?" she asked.

Eduardo sighed, and slumped back in his seat. "Sure," he said grudgingly. Wow. He had thought before that he would do anything for her, but only now did he realise that he'd actually meant it.

x x x

Roland brought the Ecto-1 to a stop in the garage, and Egon came eagerly out from behind his desk to hear about the case. Kylie headed straight for the reception desk.

"Janine, may I use your computer?" she asked, as Roland and Egon headed towards the basement and ultimately the containment unit. "Jack should be home by now – he might have e-mailed."

"Y'know, it's only just gone one o'clock where he is," Janine pointed out.

"I know," snapped Kylie, practically barging Janine out of her chair. "It's Friday – he's only at school for the morning."

About a minute later, her excited cry of "Ooh – he's e-mailed!" brought Garrett eagerly towards her, and Eduardo trailed nonchalantly behind.

"How is he?" asked Garrett.

"He seems ok," replied Kylie, scanning the text on the screen in order to ascertain whether there was anything particularly personal in there that Jack would not want broadcast. Then, when Roland and Egon returned from the basement, she read the message aloud:

_Dear Kylie,_

_Thanks for your last e-mail. I still don't quite understand this whole e-mail thing, but it seems to work, so I guess that's all that matters. Deb says it works just like telephones, but I never really understood how those work either. A lot of stuff seems to have been invented while I was away – it's like I've come back to a whole different world!_

_Deborah is still helping me write to you, but not so much – she says I'm improving really quickly and so do my teachers. (Deb also says hi.) I thought it would be really weird going back to school, and I thought I'd hate it, but it's actually ok. I thought I'd feel stupid because I was so behind, but the people in my class are just dense rich kids who are stupider than me because I'm improving faster than them even though they've been through high school and I never even finished first grade._

_I think Toby's getting used to having me around. Yesterday he played with me for a whole hour so he must like me a bit. Mom's getting used to me too – she doesn't have to keep checking I'm still here as much as she used to. When can you come and see us? I really miss you and I'd love you to meet the family. Well, anyway, take care. Say hi to the guys for me._

_Jack x_

"He wrote that with a nine year old?" Roland asked interestedly. "That's very good indeed, considering he's ten years behind the rest of us."

"He told me on the phone that this Deborah's a smart kid," replied Kylie. "You know, I do wonder how he feels about this Ted person – his stepfather. He hasn't said in any of his e-mails that he likes him, and obviously if he _didn't_ like him he couldn't say so because Deborah helps write them."

"She's the step-dad's kid, right?" Eduardo asked.

Kylie frowned slightly. "Yes. Jack doesn't really talk about him on the phone either. Perhaps he's afraid of being overheard."

"You ought to go and see him," offered Janine. "We can spare her for a week or two, can't we, Egon?"

"I want to," said Kylie, before Egon had a chance to answer. "I'd have to see Jack's mother, of course, but I'd just have to deal with it. I really want to see him again, and find out for myself how he's getting on. I can't go until college breaks, though."

By now she was talking to herself more than anyone else. She clicked on the _reply_ icon, and everyone politely moved away. However Kylie, still staring at the screen, reached out and put a restraining hand on Roland's arm.

"What can I say to him?" she demanded.

"I don't know," shrugged Roland. "Say you're glad he seems to be settling in with his new family. Tell him about what you've been doing."

Kylie frowned, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. "I've done all of that – every time I've written. He's probably sick of it. I wish…"

Roland cocked an eyebrow. "What?" he asked.

"I wish I could give him some good news."

"Like what?"

"Never mind."

She pursed her lips, thought for a few moments and then quickly dashed off a somewhat woolly response:

_Dear Jack,_

_I'm so glad you're getting on well. Sounds like you'll be out of school sooner than we expected! You always were smart. Remember when Miss Moore found out you and I were the only two students in the class who could count beyond ten!_

_Of course I would love to come and see you, and to meet your family. Unfortunately I have college, as you know, but maybe I can come over sometime during the Christmas break? Or maybe that's imposing – you'd better casually mention the idea to your mom and step-dad and see how they react. I'm so looking forward to seeing you. I've been missing you all over again!_

_Best wishes,_

_Kylie xx_

She stood up abruptly, at the same moment sending the e-mail, and then stalked from the room. Janine reclaimed her chair, and Roland wandered upstairs. Eduardo and Garrett were up there with Slimer. Egon, presumably, had disappeared to his lab.

"I think Kylie's up to something," announced Roland.

"Up to something?" echoed Garrett. "Why would you think that?"

"Well, you know that look she gets, when she's going to borrow Egon's ghost beacon, or she's going to try and talk the giant plant round, or she's going to open up the containment unit and talk to the Grundle…"

Slimer, looking alarmed, suddenly rose a few feet into the air and started babbling incomprehensibly.

"I don't think she's planning to open the containment unit again," Roland added hastily, and Slimer seemed to relax. "I think it's something to do with Jack."

"With Jack?" Eduardo looked up sharply. "It was to do with Jack last time. We found the guy – what the hell is her problem now?"

"Well," said Roland, "everything didn't just go back to normal, like she probably hoped it would. She's worried about him."

"Finding him," Garrett added sagely, "seems to have opened a few cans of worms."

**06:30 pm:**

Of course they all knew what concerned Kylie the most. Indeed, Daniel Ryan's apparent disappearance was a cause for great concern. They had all hoped that he might have been found by now, but four weeks was long enough to confirm that he really was missing.

Eduardo had absolutely no faith in the police. Kylie had started out hopeful, but now she shared this somewhat pessimistic view. The goddamn cops probably didn't even care. A man, somebody's dad, was missing, but why should they care? If you cared that much about people, you couldn't be a cop. All that death and disappearance would drive you crazy. Even if one or two of them did start the job in possession of some compassion, they must quickly become desensitised. Eduardo had said something along those lines once: "They hear about people getting robbed, beaten up, killed, whatever, every day. After a while the words just lose their meaning."

She was in a corner of the basement, thumbing her way through a battered old hardback. Kylie trusted old books. The older the better, as far as she was concerned. About ninety percent of the population would have been illiterate when this one was written, and she had a theory that words composed for mass consumption were unreliable. After all, the news these days was virtually all a pack of lies. But why would someone give false information in a book that was unlikely to be read?

She paused when she came to a page that grabbed her attention, and for a few minutes she just sat catatonically and stared at it. The language was unclear and the letters distorted, and the pages were yellowed with age. Kylie squinted at the book, trying to make some sense of it.

_I could do this_, she thought. _How hard could it be? What could go wrong?_

That was a stupid question, and she knew it. Anything could happen and, knowing her track record, everything that could go wrong almost certainly _would_ go wrong. This wouldn't be the first time she had acted alone and done something rash. Barely over a month had passed since she – with a little help from young Casey Jackson – had unwittingly freed the Grundle. Then, remembering the disaster with the ghost beacon, Kylie snapped the book shut and threw it to the ground in front of her. There was some considerable force behind the throw and the old book skidded several inches across the floor.

"You're an idiot," Kylie said aloud. She knew she had to hear the words, and not just inside her head, otherwise she probably wouldn't listen. "You're a kid and you can't do any of this stuff. There's another way."

_So what is it?_ an annoying little voice in the back of her mind demanded.

Kylie shook her head. She didn't know. She wanted to talk to Jack, to find out how this made him feel. It must be eating away at him from the inside. The last thing he knew, he had been living happily with his parents in New York, and suddenly he didn't even know where his father was. He didn't even know whether or not he was alive! Kylie squeezed her eyes tight shut, trying not to let the tears spill over. She wanted to be with him. How could that goddamn woman take him so far away?

"Kylie!"

Startled, Kylie snapped her eyes open and jumped to her feet. Egon was standing at the top of the staircase, his eyes on the book in the middle of the floor.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

Kylie blinked back the last threat of tears. "Thinking," she said quietly.

"We just got a call. Didn't you hear the alarm?"

"Alarm?" Kylie was astonished. How could she have missed that? "No."

"Kylie, are you all right?"

Kylie nodded. "Sure. I'd, um, better go get kitted up, then." She crossed the room quickly and ran up the stairs. "See you later."

Egon watched her sprint up the stairs towards her teammates, and then strolled down into the basement. He wandered over to the book, picked it up with both hands and blew the light coating of dust from the cover. The book was hard, heavy and extremely worn. It smelt musty, and a little damp. Egon put it under one arm to polish his glasses, and then squinted at the title. On deciphering the worn text he frowned and jerked his head round sharply, his eyes following Kylie's line of retreat.

He pursed his lips, thinking. Should he take her off this case and talk to her now? The job had sounded fairly straightforward – the others would probably be able to manage without her. However the distant sound of the Ecto-1's siren made the decision for him. Shaking his head sadly, Egon hugged the book to his chest and made his way back towards the staircase. As he ascended to ground level, he reasoned with himself that it could wait until the team returned. Whatever Kylie was planning to do, she couldn't very well attempt it in the middle of someone's home.

**03:30 pm:**

"The Spice Girls," announced Deborah, waving a CD jacket under Jack's nose. "They're from England. They were very popular at the end of last year. They're still doing ok, but they'll be on the way out soon if you ask me."

She fed the CD to her CD player, which Jack thought resembled some kind of sci-fi fantasy alien spacecraft. He flinched when Deborah turned on the music. Well, the music wasn't bad – punchy and quite fun, really – but the English women shouting over it rather spoilt it for him.

"I don't think I like nineties music, Deb," Jack said apologetically. "I'm sorry, but that's just how it is."

Deborah frowned. She had been trying all week. "There must be _something_ you like," she objected. "Was it really ten years since you last listened to music?"

"Um, I think so. Maybe more."

"I'm afraid I don't have anything from the eighties." To Jack's relief, she stopped the CD. "Dad might, or Sandra."

"Why is everything silver?" demanded Jack. "It's like something from _Star Trek_."

"Don't know," shrugged Deborah, sitting down next to him on the bed. It was her room, and Jack was perched self-consciously on a pink-trimmed quilt cover decorated with cutesy cartoon horses. "People like silver."

"We used to have CDs," Jack remembered, "but we had cassettes as well. I haven't seen a single one since I've been back. What's happened to them all?"

"They're on the way out," Deborah told him. "CDs are much better. They don't melt. Well, they might do if it was hot enough, but it never is. There's no CD that suddenly decides to get all tied up in itself, and you just have to press a button a few times if you want to listen to a particular song, instead of all that rewinding and fast-forwarding to find the right place."

"Huh," muttered Jack. "Everything's changed. I mean, look at the size of your computer! It's tiny! Computers should be _at least_ as big as a fridge."

His tone was jovial, but Deborah didn't seem to see the joke. She just shook her head incredulously and asked, "How could you have missed all of this, Jack? Where have you been?"

Jack looked down at the carpet. It was a gentle shade of blue. Nothing in Deborah's room matched. It reminded him a little of his old home back in Manhattan. He liked hanging out in there, and he enjoyed spending time with Deborah. Her friendship was another thing that reminded him of his lost childhood.

"I don't _know_ where I've been," he muttered.

Deborah opened her mouth as if to speak, but she said nothing. She tried to think of the appropriate words, but her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Come in!" she called brightly.

The door opened a few inches and Sandra poked her head into the room. She smiled on seeing her older son and said, "Oh, good – there you are, Jack. Hi, Deb," she added quickly. "Honey, I made you an appointment."

"An appointment?" echoed Jack, frowning confusedly. "Who with?"

"A doctor," replied Sandra. "Well… a, um, hypnotist."

Jack pulled a face. "Huh?"

"You know," Deborah said smilingly. She jumped down from the bed, crossed the room and picked up a silver locket from the top of her dresser. "You are feeling very sleeeeeepy," she intoned mockingly, holding the locket at the top of the chain and swinging it back and forth like a pendulum.

"Oh yeah," Jack nodded. In his youth – or what he had of it – he had enjoyed many cartoons, and almost all of them had featured a hypnotist at some point. "Why?"

"His name's Dr. Mortimer," Sandra explained. "And he's going to help you remember what happened."

Jack's heart froze. "What?" he croaked nervously.

"I told you I'd take you to see someone, honey."

"But… but I don't want to! Mom, please, I… I don't _want_ to remember."

Sandra frowned. "Was it that bad?"

Jack shook his head. "I don't know. I don't… I don't _want_ to know."

"Oh, sweetheart," his mother sighed. "_I_ have to know."

"Why?" Deborah demanded suddenly, and for the first time since Jack had met her four weeks ago, her smile vanished. "It didn't happen to you – it happened to Jack. Why should he go through it again just because _you_ want to know?"

Sandra scowled. "I _need_ to know," she said coldly. "And I think Jack should too."

"Doesn't it matter what Jack thinks?"

This time Sandra ignored her. She turned her eyes to Jack, her jaw set like steel, and said stiffly, "Tomorrow at two, ok?"

Jack couldn't speak. He merely nodded.

"Good," Sandra approved. "Dinner at seven, you two – all right?"

She left, shutting the door firmly behind her. Deborah was still holding the locket, now with the thin silver chain coiled in her hand, and frowning thoughtfully at it through stray locks of her long dark hair.

"Deb," ventured Jack. "I thought you and my mom got on ok."

"We do, usually," shrugged Deborah. "Sometimes we don't agree. Nobody agrees with everybody all the time. I probably used to disagree with my mom sometimes too. I don't really remember."

This made Jack feel awkward. Since he had been living with Deborah the subject of her late mother had never come up.

"Anyway." Deborah placed the locket lovingly back on the dresser, and went to sit on the bed next to Jack once again. "I'm sorry about the hypnotist."

Jack returned his gaze to the carpet. His throat was dry, and he was overwhelmed with a horrible feeling of dread. "I can't go," he said quietly. "If he… if he's really going to make me tell him what happened…"

"I'm sorry," Deborah said again. "Was it very bad? Is that why you don't want to remember?"

"It _was_ bad," Jack nodded. "And I… I know what happened."

"You do?" asked Deborah, sounding faintly surprised.

"Yes." He nodded again. "I can't remember, but I know. But I can't tell anyone. If I tell this doctor what happened, he… he'll think I'm crazy."

He expected Deborah to demand that he let her on in the secret, but she didn't. She simply put a comforting hand on his arm and said gently, "Well, maybe he's a bad hypnotist. Or maybe, if you really convince yourself that you aren't going to tell him anything no matter what he does, you'll be ok. I think you're strong like that."

Finally Jack looked up, and pulled a face. "That'll work?"

"I don't know," shrugged Deborah. "Worth a try. Does… does anybody else know what happened to you? Is there someone you can talk to about it?"

"Kylie," Jack replied at once. "If I call Kylie… your dad and my mom might hear."

"Well," said Deborah, jumping to her feet and flashing him a look of determination. "How about you call Kylie from up here, and I distract Dad and Sandra downstairs?"

"Really?" asked Jack. "You'd do that?"

"Of course."

"Um, ok. Thanks."

**07:10 pm:**

"Great, hi, come in."

He was a youngish man, perhaps in his late twenties, and handsome. He had a silver earring, baggy black jeans ripped at the knees and dark hair carefully gelled to look a mess. A silver skull pendant hung at his chest. Kylie noticed the way he smiled at her before he turned to lead them into his apartment.

"Sorry about the mess," the man, one Mike Fisher according to Janine's information, grinned sheepishly. "I don't get a lot of visitors, and you were kinda last-minute."

Roland found Mike Fisher's choice of décor slightly intimidating. Garrett quietly considered it pretentious, but Kylie rather liked it. Eduardo was just plain surprised. The walls were black and lined with shelves that housed a veritable library of worn old books. Candles, gothic statues… a _skull_, for crying out loud! It couldn't be real, Eduardo decided. It was just for show. This guy probably had guests over all the time, and delivered the same old line about the terrible state his home was in and how bizarre and interesting he must seem. He probably brought girls here constantly – a different one every day. He undoubtedly gave them all that syrupy smile he was currently radiating towards Kylie. Bastard.

"I'm sorry," Mike Fisher went on. "It's probably nothing. It's just… the noises… and the feeling I get when I go in there. You know when someone shoves a snowball down your neck?"

Garrett favoured him with a dry smile. "Not especially."

"Well." Mike Fisher crossed the room and opened a door to reveal what could have been a very large cupboard or a very small room. He was evidently using it as a very large cupboard, because it was stacked full of junk: old clothes, books, more hockey sticks than one man needs… "In there."

Roland took the lead, followed by Garrett, and then Eduardo. Fortunately for Mike Fisher, Kylie brought up the rear. She was about to try and squeeze herself in there with her three teammates – who took up three quarters of the available space between them – when Mike stepped into her path and said, with a lopsided smile, "Hey."

Kylie frowned at him. "What?"

"I knew I wouldn't regret calling you guys out here."

Her frowned deepened. "You have got to be kidding me."

"Hey, come on, give a guy a break," said Mike Fisher, still smiling in a way that was probably supposed to be endearing. "Can't I see if a pretty girl likes me back?"

"I'm an exterminator," Kylie returned flatly. "I provide a service. Would you make a move on the window cleaner?"

"I don't have a window cleaner."

Mike Fisher may not have a window cleaner, but he did have nice dark eyes. Kylie dropped her gaze and let her eyes wander over to the nearest bookshelf. Having seen this guy's taste in house ornaments, she couldn't help wondering about his choice of reading matter. Well, the books certainly seemed to match the gothic theme: horror stories, vampires, ancient orders, religious sects, myths and legends from various cultures…

"You're into all that stuff?" Kylie asked interestedly.

Mike Fisher bent his knees slightly, lowering his entire body until he was able to catch Kylie's eye. "It fascinates me," he purred.

"Ah-ha…"

"Hey." Quite suddenly, Eduardo appeared between them. "Dude, there's nothing in there but hockey sticks."

"Really?" asked Mike Fisher, his eyebrows shooting skyward. "Oh dear, I'm so sorry. I did tell whoever answered the phone that I hadn't actually _seen _anything, but… well…"

"It's ok," Kylie assured him. "If you felt there was something there you were right to call us."

"I'm so sorry to have wasted your time." He was still looking at Kylie, and so didn't notice Eduardo rolling his eyes. "And it's so late! Um, how much do I owe you?"

"Well," began Garrett, as he wheeled his way out of the small room/large cupboard. "We didn't actually do anything, but for the trouble of coming out here I think fifty dollars is reasonable. Or maybe sixty, as it's after hours."

Mike Fisher cocked an eyebrow. "It sounds like you just made that up," he remarked.

"Don't listen to him," Roland, the last to emerge from the cupboard, put in hastily. "Our secretary will invoice you."

"All right," Mike Fisher said amiably, not taking his eyes from Kylie's face. "So, what's your name?"

"Kylie."

Eduardo had been scrutinising this guy very carefully, and as Kylie announced her name he thought he saw something pass briefly over Mike Fisher's face. It was very quick, and Eduardo could not ascertain exactly what it was; but whatever it had meant, he got the impression that there was more to this situation than met the eye. There was something about Mike Fisher that just… didn't feel right. He seemed fake. His apartment and everything in it didn't seem natural. It felt… staged.

"Can I have your number?"

"Oh." Kylie looked away. "I don't think so."

"Ah well." Mike Fisher crossed the room and produced a pad of Post-its from a desk drawer. He scribbled something on one of the yellow scraps of paper and then handed it to Kylie, careful to brush his fingers against hers as he said, "Well, here's mine. Please think about it a little bit before you throw it away."

Kylie sighed. He was nice. He was handsome. He talked well: didn't give her silly nicknames like "babe" or "gorgeous". He acknowledged that she had every right to make the decision for herself. He had asked nicely. He had some good books. It might be safe to say yes. It might not. He might hurt her. He probably would, sooner or later. But he had a nice smile. Was she weak enough to be won over by a smile?

"I'll think about it."

"Thank you."

x x x

Throughout the journey back to the firehouse, Eduardo debated with himself whether to voice his concerns about Mike Fisher. He changed his mind a few times before he finally decided that expressing his doubts would be completely pointless. Kylie wouldn't listen. She knew that Eduardo was negative about most of the people they met, and this time there wasn't even any apparent reason for it. It was just a hunch.

"So," ventured Eduardo, once they were back at HQ and climbing out of the car. "Are you gonna go out with him?"

"I don't know," snapped Kylie. "Probably not."

"Oh. Why?"

"What do you mean, 'why'?"

"I mean, why?" Well, there was no better way to phrase the question.

"Is that any of your business?"

"Kylie!"

On hearing her name, spoken in unison by Egon and Janine, Kylie looked round sharply and raised enquiring eyebrows towards the reception desk.

"This is important," Egon said gravely, taking a few steps towards Kylie. "Can it wait, Janine?"

"Um, sure," shrugged Janine.

"Good. Kylie, would you come with me, please?"

Curious and more than a little nervous, for Egon was obviously displeased about something, Kylie followed her boss sedately towards his lab. He opened the door, stepped aside to allow Kylie room to enter and then very firmly shut them in. He walked stiffly over to a desk, from which he picked up a very thick hardback volume that Kylie knew only too well. She folded her arms across her chest and raised her eyebrows, looking at Egon impatiently.

"What's this?" he demanded.

"It's a book," Kylie replied calmly.

"Do you know what this book is about?"

"I seem to recall that that particular book is about Druidic magic."

"You were reading it in the basement earlier."

"Yes, I know."

His gaze was stern, but Kylie didn't waver. She didn't like being questioned like this. So she'd read a book – what exactly was her crime? It needn't matter that she'd had Jack's situation in mind at the time. Then quite suddenly she remembered the resentment she had felt towards the original Ghostbusters some weeks ago, when she pointed out to Eduardo that they had had the power to save Jack.

"Why?" demanded Egon.

"It interests me," Kylie returned irritably, dragging her mind back to the present.

"Why read it in the basement?"

"For quiet. Why are you asking me all of these questions?"

"Were you," Egon went on levelly, "or are you planning to perform any of these rituals?"

Kylie cocked an eyebrow. "Such as…?"

"I don't know. You tell me."

"No, Egon, I am not," snapped Kylie. "I'm not stupid."

"I know you're not stupid," Egon deadpanned. "But you _have_ been prone to rash behaviour, on occasion."

"Well not this time, ok? You've been jumping to conclusions."

"Good." Egon put the book down. "I'm glad."

"What, that's it?" Kylie asked sharply. "You're not sorry?"

"I had to enquire," Egon said calmly.

Kylie continued to scowl at him, quietly wondering whether she should feel guilty for reacting in the way she was. She _had_ thought about performing a small spell, for all of five seconds. If Egon really wanted to know, she thought, her gaze dropping to the book on the desk, he could probably figure it out. But then again, he evidently wasn't always as smart as he liked to think he was. He had let Jack stay as a Grundle, stuck in that tree for all those years. If he and his team had just found Jack, his life would have continued as normal and his father almost certainly wouldn't be missing now.

"Can I go now?" Kylie demanded rudely.

"Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yeah, sure, _I'm_ all right. Egon, are you sorry about what happened to Jack?"

Egon looked surprised. "Of course I am," he said at once.

"Do you feel bad," Kylie pressed, "that you didn't stop it?"

"How could I have done that?"

"You could have found him."

"Kylie," Egon said sternly. "This is a pointless conversation."

"You _should_ feel bad," Kylie said acidly. "It was your job to save all of those children. You should have double-checked. You shouldn't have let it happen."

"I thought you wanted to leave."

He looked angry, and possibly a little upset. Kylie sensed that she had struck a nerve. Well, how couldn't she, with a crushing speech like that? She was still feeling a lot of resentment, but Egon probably didn't deserve to bear the brunt of it. She wasn't really angry with him. She was just angry. But still, her words seemed to her to make a lot of sense. Looking at Egon now, she wasn't feeling the usual degree of admiration and respect she had for him. Then, quite suddenly, Mike Fisher jumped into her mind from out of nowhere. Kylie was a little taken aback by this. Here she was, alone with Egon, thinking of Mike Fisher.

"Sorry," she mumbled, raising a hand to her forehead as her confusion began to manifest itself in a dull ache between her temples. "Egon, did you ever date a client?"

Of all the things she had said to him that evening, this seemed to surprise Egon the most. "Um, well, no," he replied awkwardly. "Peter dated all the clients he could."

Kylie raised her eyes to his face. "And…?" she enquired.

"Well, you've heard about what Venkman's like. Why do you ask?"

"Mike Fisher gave me his number."

Egon pulled a face. "We already have it," he remarked.

"Yeah, well," shrugged Kylie, "it was more like a gesture really."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. He didn't even have a ghost, you know. I suppose it's possible that he might be a little bit crazy."

"Of course it's possible. He's just like any other new client: he could be anybody. You need to be careful."

"I know. I'm not stupid."

Egon didn't respond – he apparently had nothing more to say. Kylie hadn't either, so she decided to leave. After all, the conversation wasn't exactly flowing smoothly.

Eduardo, meanwhile, had been moaning to Janine about Mike Fisher. Garrett and Roland were hovering in the background and listening to the list of complaints: "He just seemed so _fake_. I mean, his apartment – he just _happens_ to be into all the same stuff as Kylie – and he didn't even have a ghost! Don't you think that's suspicious?"

"I think you're clutching at straws," Janine said gently. "Eduardo, do you think you might be just a little bit…?"

Eduardo looked at her sharply. "What?" he demanded.

"Nothing," Janine back-pedalled hastily.

However Garrett finished the sentence for her: "Jealous."

"No," snapped Eduardo. "I just don't wanna see her get hurt. There was something wrong about that guy. He just looked at Kylie the moment we arrived and didn't take his eyes off her once. It was like he was…"

"What?" asked Garrett. "Attracted to her? It happens. Get over it."

"No," Eduardo snapped again. "It was like he'd been expecting her. And I don't mean us – I mean _her_, specifically. The way he talked to her seemed…" – he sought for the right word – "rehearsed. _And _all that stuff in his apartment looked brand new."

"So what?" said Garrett.

Just for a change, Eduardo ignored him. Instead of answering back he looked at Roland and demanded, "What did _you_ think of him?"

"I don't know," shrugged Roland. "I guess I can see what you mean, but… well, I wasn't really paying that much attention to him."

"Look," Janine cut in. "Whether you're right or not, Eduardo, it has to be Kylie's – oh, Kylie, hi! You're back. What was that all about?"

"Egon doesn't trust me," Kylie replied irritably, "and he thinks I'm stupid."

"What?" Janine frowned confusedly.

"Never mind."

"Jack called."

Kylie looked at her sharply. "_Jack_ called?" she echoed. "Why didn't you tell me straightaway?"

"Egon wouldn't let me," Janine said defensively.

"I'm gonna call him back, ok?" Her hand was already on the phone.

"Ok."

A male voice answered Kylie's call, but it wasn't Jack's. It must be his stepfather, this Ted Beaumont person she had heard so little about.

"Um, hi," Kylie said nervously. "May I speak to Jack?"

"Who's calling, please?"

"Kylie."

"Just a moment."

Kylie obediently waited for a moment – quite a long one – and then heard a few strange scuffling sounds. She was relieved when finally Jack's voice greeted her with a furtively hissed, "Kylie! Hi."

"Hi," replied Kylie. "Jack, are you ok?"

"Um…" – there was a short pause. "Yeah. Deb's distracting the parents for me. Ky, listen, I got a problem. Mom's making me go to a hypnotist tomorrow."

"A _hypnotist_?" Kylie's eyes widened in alarm. "Oh my God, Jack, that's terrible! He might make you tell him everything about the Grundle! Or is it a she?"

"It's a he," Jack said quickly, "but that doesn't matter. Kylie, what am I gonna _do_?"

"I don't know…"

"May I have that?" Eduardo asked sharply, and he snatched the phone from Kylie's hand. He then put it to his ear and said, "Jack, hi, it's Eduardo. Listen: hypnotists are full of shit, ok? They're all frauds, but if you go in there nervous and expecting to slip up you might say something you'll regret. Just chill out and don't let him grind you down, ok?"

"Um, ok," Jack replied uncertainly.

"I'm right, Jack – ok?"

"Sure, ok."

"Good." He lowered the receiver and offered it to Kylie. "Here."

"Well," Kylie said to Jack, once she'd accepted the phone back from Eduardo, "that actually sounds like good advice. Just try not to worry, ok? It'll be fine."

She sounded calm, but to those who could see it, her face betrayed her anxiety. She chatted to Jack for a few more minutes, and then put the phone down with a cry of, "Oh my God! This is terrible! She just doesn't give up!"

"He'll be fine," Eduardo said breezily, "if he takes my advice."

"Eddie," ventured Garrett. "Who _don't_ you think is a total sham?"

"I don't know," retorted Eduardo. "Perhaps no one. Ky." He turned to look at Kylie, who was leaning against Janine's desk and looking extremely worried. "Just relax, ok? It'll be cool."

"Maybe it will be, this time – but then what?" retorted Kylie. "She is _never_ going to give up. She's going to keep pushing and pushing until she finds out what really happened to him."

"Would that be so bad?" asked Roland.

Kylie shook her head. "Perhaps not. I don't know. I'm just so sure she wouldn't believe it. If I told her, she'd think I was lying. If Jack told her she'd think he was crazy."

"You mean Jack's mom?" asked Garrett. "Ky, you didn't see her for like more than ten years. You can't be totally sure of anything."

Kylie raised her eyes to look at him. "I guess you're right," she conceded. "Maybe I _do_ just need to relax. We'll just have to wait and see what happens, won't we?"

x x x

In spite of her efforts, however, Kylie found it virtually impossible to relax for the rest of the day. When she arrived home later that evening she fed Pagan and then tried to get into some study, but she found that she couldn't concentrate. _Just relax!_ she told herself, beginning to get quite irritable. _What's the worst that could happen? Sandra already hates you, and she's never going to stop loving Jack – so nothing's exactly gonna change even if she does find out, is it?_

However she quickly discovered that no amount of self-chastisement could soothe her rattled nerves. Kylie left the pile of work on her desk and threw herself onto the bed beside Pagan. The cat looked at her enquiringly and she tickled his chin, asking dolefully, "What am I gonna do, Pagy?"

Pagan purred as Kylie stroked him. He rolled over and exposed his stomach to her – the highest compliment a cat can give to a human. And then, quite suddenly, she was thinking about Mike Fisher again. She sighed despairingly. She couldn't believe it. She tried so hard not to get involved with people, because she had had enough of being let down. But on the other hand, thinking about Mike Fisher was better than thinking about Jack and it was infinitely better than wondering about Jack's father. Any distraction from that couldn't be bad, surely.

"You know what?" Kylie rose to her knees and stretched across the bed towards the phone, looking defiantly down at Pagan's enquiring gaze. "I'm gonna call him."

"Mrrrooowww," Pagan returned disinterestedly, curling up and closing his eyes.

Kylie shrugged off her cat's lack of support, and dialled Mike Fisher's number. As she did so she wondered if she was calling a bit late, but she had barely finished the thought when he answered on the third ring.

"Kylie!" he exclaimed, once she had announced her identity, and she could clearly visualise the smile she heard in his voice. "I'm so glad you called."

_To be continued…_


	4. Chapter 4

_Extreme Ghostbusters: _**A Little Boy Lost**

Part 4

**February**

Kylie was at home. She seemed to have developed a slight procrastination problem of late, and she quickly realised that she couldn't concentrate on catching up with her college work when surrounded by the distractions of the firehouse and the people in it. When an entire fruitless morning had flown by without any progress, Kylie had asked Egon if she might be allowed to go home. He had of course given his permission, and warned that he might call her if an important case came up.

When the phone finally rang, Kylie was not sorry. She was beginning to get irritated with the assignment she was working on, and had developed an ever-increasing hatred towards Virginia Woolf. Having spent the entire afternoon reading a novella that fell tragically short of being as clever as it thought it was, Kylie was getting a headache. She had made copious notes in the margin, which she now realised were all nonsense. _"Psychological time/S of C – mod tech"_ – just what the hell did any of it mean? Sure, she'd be able to spin an essay out of it, and then she would eventually be rewarded with a letter of the alphabet for coming up with a load of rubbish. It all seemed rather pointless when she thought about it like that.

"Hello?"

"Kylie, hi. It's me."

"Jack!" exclaimed Kylie, her face breaking into a smile. "Hi! It's so good to hear from you! How have you been getting on?"

"Oh, great," said Jack. "Really well. I'm… I'm really catching up with… well, life, I guess. I'm even starting to feel… I don't know… less like a kid."

"I'm so pleased to hear that." She wondered how he was feeling now about his father's failure to make an appearance, but she had learnt that Jack didn't like to talk about that, and so Daniel was now a taboo subject. "You sound happy."

"I am. I'm ok. So… so when can you come and see us again? I've been… you know… missing you, um, ever since you left."

"It was only December – it wasn't that long ago," said Kylie.

"It seems like ages," Jack persisted. "I've been missing you… I don't know… more than I thought I would. I really want to see you again, Ky."

Kylie smiled. "I want to see you again too. I'll tell you something – I wouldn't mind being where you are right now. It's _freezing_ over here!"

"Yeah, I remember."

They began to discuss New York winters passed, which inevitably led to a further half-hour of reminiscing. This always happened when they talked, and they always seemed to come up with something new to say. They hadn't had many years together, but they certainly seemed to have filled the ones they did have. It saddened Jack to think of all the time he had missed, and what he might have done with it – much of it with Kylie – but he got around that problem by just not thinking about it.

"Mom's still making me see that hypnotist," said Jack.

"She is?" Kylie pulled a face. "Thank God you realised he's full of shit. It's true, you know: if you don't believe you can be hypnotised, you can't."

"Well, it looks that way. I think he's sick of the sight of me, but Mom still makes me go. She's making me go tomorrow, _and_ she said that if I don't start making progress with him soon she's going to send me to a different kind of shrink."

"A different kind of shrink?" echoed Kylie. "She's determined to find out, Jack. I know I said you shouldn't tell her… I still don't think you should, but…"

"What?" asked Jack.

"Well, if you're having such a hard time…"

"It's ok. I don't think I should tell her either."

"Well, you know, you _are_ an adult – you could just refuse to go to these doctors."

"Yeah…" he said thoughtfully. "Yeah, I guess I could. I didn't think of that, but like I say, I _am_ beginning to feel more my age…"

"Well, don't go," advised Kylie. "Tell your mom you just want to drop it, ok?"

After that they discussed their paediatrician, whom both Kylie and Jack had all but forgotten before all this talk of doctors. Eventually, however, they hung up, and Kylie was horrified to learn how late it was. Pagan was pushing his head against her arms by this time, so Kylie fed him and then settled down again to work. However she had barely read three of Virginia Woolf's overrated words when the phone rang again.

"Hey babe, it's me," a male voice purred seductively.

"Oh, Mike, hi," Kylie smiled dryly. "Look, I… I'm sorry I haven't been in touch lately. I've been busy."

"Wow, you sure know how to make a guy feel special."

"Mike, come on – we only went out a few times."

"Well," Mike said coolly, "I would like very much to go out with you again. Come on, Kylie – I thought you liked me."

Kylie sighed. "I do."

"So what's the problem?"

"It's not you – I just can't go out. I don't have _time_ to go out. I have to finish reading this stupid 'novella', and then I have to write an essay about it, and then I have to - "

"Babe. There are more important things than study. I've missed you, Kylie. I want to see you tonight."

"Tonight?"

"Yes. Please…?"

Kylie thought for a few moments. She and Mike had occasionally gone out together over the last few months, and she had always enjoyed herself, but in spite of her initial curiosity she had quickly discovered that she wasn't as keen as he seemed to be. She hadn't even really given him a proper answer to his suggestion that they see each other as friends, because she felt sure that it was just cover and he hoped it would lead to more. She liked him, of course, but there was something about him that didn't seem right, though she couldn't quite put her finger on it. She also didn't understand his interest in her; they seemed to have nothing in common except for being Goth, unless you counted the things that Mike would suddenly, and not always convincingly announce fascinated him if Kylie happened to mention them in conversation.

"Come on, Kylie. I'll bet it isn't even a good book."

"No," Kylie had to admit. "No, it isn't. All right – what the hell?" She slammed the book shut in a dramatic gesture. "Let's go out tonight."

"Boodiful," crooned Mike. "I'll pick you up at eight, ok?"

"Ok. Where are we going?"

"I'll take you somewhere very special, sweetheart."

**08:30 pm:**

Eduardo was at home, even though it was a Friday night. It had been dark for hours now, there was a minor blizzard going on and besides, it was just too cold to go out. The kettle whistled, echoing the wind outside, much to Eduardo's relief. He had been drinking a lot of coffee – enough that he was unlikely to sleep that night – but it was worth it, because he hated the cold. He thought, just as he had done the year before, that he would arrange to spend the next winter with his aunt in Mexico. He was sure she'd be thrilled to let him stay with her – she was extremely fond of her late brother's sons. All he had to do this time was remember to call and ask her.

The coffee was just beginning to warm him from the inside when a sound like a small stampede of elephants crashing against the front door reached his ears. Eduardo sighed deeply. The identity of his visitor was obvious – it could only be one person with a knock like that – but it wasn't at all clear what he might want. There was no music on; there was no girl in there, no illegal substances, not even any sound from the TV. So what the hell was his problem?

"Oh, you're here," barked Eduardo's brother Carl, in full police uniform, his arms folded across his oversized chest. "It's probably nothing, but I found something."

"Huh?"

"I found something!" Carl repeated, much louder this time, apparently under the impression that more volume would clarify his meaning. "For your girlfriend!"

"She's not my girl… you _found_ something?" Eduardo's eyes widened as the meaning of his brother's words finally sunk in.

"Don't get excited," Carl cautioned. "If it was a strong lead somebody would have followed it up. It's probably nothing. Make sure you tell her that."

"I will."

"It's a long shot, Eddie, but it's something if she wants to check it out."

"Ok, ok, great," Eduardo said hurriedly. "What is it?"

"Here." Carl unfolded his arms to reveal a few sheaves of crumpled paper, which he thrust into the hands of his younger brother. "If anyone finds you with that who shouldn't, I never saw it, ok?"

"Sure, sure," Eduardo nodded, running his eyes over the documents in his hand. "Hmm… you're probably right about it being nothing."

Carl cocked an eyebrow. "Worth a try?" he asked.

"Of course." Eduardo's gaze dropped to his feet. "He's somebody's dad."

"Yeah, well."

Carl turned to leave, but paused halfway down the metal staircase when Eduardo called after him, "Carlos!"

Carl turned round sharply. "What?"

"Thanks."

x x x

The restaurant was lavishly decorated, the food exotic and the prices outrages. Every woman in it wore diamonds, with one notable exception. Kylie longed to ask Mike how he could afford all of this on his wage from Tower Records, but it would be incredibly rude to ask.

"Don't you like the wine?" asked Mike, when Kylie's glass had remained untouched for about half an hour.

Kylie shrugged. "It's ok. But the last couple of times I took a sip that waiter came over and filled my glass to the brim. He's trying to get me drunk."

Mike smiled. He had a very charming smile. "Why would _he_ be trying to get you drunk?"

"Perhaps you slipped him ten dollars."

Suddenly Mike's smile faded. He put his elbows on the table (the hovering waiter looked horrified), slotted his fingers together and rested his chin on them.

"You're not enjoying yourself," he said solemnly. "This not your scene?"

"Not really." She sounded apologetic. "And I don't think it's yours either."

"No," agreed Mike, "it's not. I'm sorry. I thought chicks liked this shit."

Kylie cocked an eyebrow. "Well, perhaps they do. But I am not a 'chick'."

"Of course not. Sorry – I shouldn't have said that." He reached across the table and traced a finger along the back of her hand. She looked down, watching the movement, wondering how to react. "So what would you rather do?"

"I don't know." Kylie raised her eyes to look at him. He was smiling at her again, his gaze fixed intently upon her face. "We might as well stick around here. But look, you have to let me pay for my - "

"No way." He raised his hand in a halting gesture. "This is my treat. If it goes against your feminist principles I'll let you pay for the next one, ok?"

They ordered dessert, and Mike kept talking, always able to think of something to say. It amazed Kylie the way he did that. She had nothing to say that she thought would interest him, although he seemed fascinated by her – by everything about her. He was full of questions. Every time she saw him he would ask her about her family, her friends, where she had gone to school… This time it was college.

"It wasn't easy at first," Kylie told him, "moving out of my father's house and living all alone with my cat. My dad helps me out with money and stuff, but it's still not easy looking after yourself when you're not used to it."

"I know," Mike nodded sympathetically. "It must have been hard for you. How long before you went to college did your grandmother die?"

Kylie stared at him. She hadn't expected that. "Did I tell you about that?" she asked.

Mike's smile didn't falter. "You must have done."

"I don't remember mentioning her to you."

"Well, I don't remember every word I've ever said to you either."

"Fair enough," Kylie conceded. "I guess I must have told you."

"Well," said Mike, "mentioned it. I don't remember you telling me much."

"She wasn't my grandmother; she was my _great_-grandmother."

"Oh well, there you go. I don't know much about it at all."

It sounded like a request for more information, but Kylie didn't particularly want to give it. She had finished eating. She laid down her spoon and said, "Mike, can we get outta here?"

"Um, sure, I'll ask for the bill. You wanna go anywhere else?"

Kylie shook her head. Mike looked disappointed, but he didn't press the issue until he was walking her home.

"Look," he said. "I don't get what the problem is. I thought we'd be great together. Is there someone else?"

"No."

"Really? No one? What about that friend you went to see before Christmas?"

"Jack?" The wind got up considerably, and Kylie pulled her trench coat closer around herself. She felt the weight of Mike's arm around her shoulders, and raised her eyes to look at him. "He's just a friend. Nothing could ever happen between him and me."

"Why not?"

"He… It's complicated, ok?"

"Kylie." He stopped walking and spun her round to face him. His hands on her shoulders, he looked intently into her eyes. They were underneath a lamppost, the harsh yellow light glaring down on them. Kylie wondered if he had stopped just there deliberately. "You can tell me. I remember you were cagey about this Jack when you told me you were going to see him."

"Yeah, I remember too," said Kylie, her eyes narrowing on his face. "I remember you asked a lot of questions about him then as well."

Mike apparently had no answer. He put his arm around her again and continued walking. About ten minutes passed before he finally said, "I don't understand. You and this Jack were friends as kids, right?"

"Right."

"But you hadn't seen him or talked to him for years. So, what happened to him in the meantime? Where has he been all this time? It doesn't make sense."

Kylie let out a deep sigh, her breath spiralling visibly on the icy wind. "Do we have to talk about Jack?" she asked wearily. "Why are you so interested anyway?"

"Kylie, babe, you know my interest in you."

They were at Kylie's building by this time. They ground to a halt outside the front door, and then he kissed her. He'd done that a couple of times before. It was nice. Not earth shattering, but nice.

He pulled gently away from her and smiled. "I guess you wouldn't have let me do that if there was anything between you and Jack."

"Guess not."

Mike moved away, and Kylie shivered. She didn't think he'd notice that, but he moved straight back to her and put his arms around her. He rested his chin on the top of her head and murmured, "Cold night. You should get inside."

"Yeah," said Kylie. "You, er… wanna come up?"

**Saturday, 08:30 am:**

Mike woke up with a start when a medium-sized cat jumped onto his stomach. Once he had recovered he sat up slowly, pushing the cat gently away, and looked around for Kylie. He quickly spotted her on the window seat, where she was eating the last of a piece of toast and hurriedly jotting down notes in some book or other.

"Sorry," Mike said sheepishly. "Guess I fell asleep."

Kylie looked up. "Guess you did." She closed the book and rose to her feet. "Come on, get up – I have to go to work."

"Oh, you're cruel," grumbled Mike, falling back onto the bed. "I have a hangover, you know."

"I've got some soluble aspirin if you want it."

"I'd rather just go back to sleep."

"Well, tough. Actually I think it's pretty rude to just fall asleep on somebody's bed in the first place."

"Yeah." Mike sat up again. "Sorry."

His black jeans and sweater were hopelessly crumpled, which was hardly surprising, as he had worn them for an entire day before falling asleep in them. He rose to his feet, absently slipping his hands into his pockets, and then looked around for his coat. It was hung neatly over the back of the chair at Kylie's desk. He went to retrieve it, feeling in both pockets before he put it on.

"Hey, where's the receipt?" asked Mike, sounding concerned.

"What?"

"The receipt from the restaurant. What happened to it?"

"It was lying by the door when I woke up. I threw it away. Why?"

"May I have it?"

"Um, sure."

Kylie joined him by the desk, ducked down to retrieve the small bin and then fished around inside it until she pulled out a crumpled scrap of paper.

"Thanks," smiled Mike, taking the receipt from her and stuffing it into his jeans pocket. "Look, I hate to ask, but I don't suppose you'd let me take a shower?"

"There's no time," said Kylie. "I have to go to work."

"So go to work – I'll lock up. I'll bring the keys to the firehouse."

"No way – I'm not leaving you here on your own."

"Why not?"

"You'll snoop around."

"Kylie!" He adopted a look of utter betrayal. "As though I would!"

"I'd just rather you didn't, ok?"

As was his way, Mike didn't push. Kylie saw him out, he kissed her in the doorway and they went their separate ways.

**09:20 am:**

"Sorry I'm a bit late," said Kylie. She had already given Janine an identical apology downstairs, and was now addressing Roland, Garrett and Eduardo.

"Don't sweat it," Garrett said dismissively.

"Are you ok?" asked Roland.

"Sure," shrugged Kylie. "I got held up, that's all."

"Kylie," ventured Eduardo. He had been slouched in an armchair, but now rose to his feet, wearing a solemn expression. "I tried to call you last night."

"Really?" asked Kylie. "I went out with Mike last night."

"You did?" Eduardo looked surprised. "I thought you dumped him."

"Why would you think that?"

"Well you weren't seeing him anymore."

"Mike and I just see each other sometimes, all right?" Kylie said dismissively, quietly wondering why she had mentioned it. It really wasn't anybody else's business how she had spent her Friday night.

"So what, is he your boyfriend?" Eduardo pressed.

"Ugh, Eduardo, I don't know. What's the big deal?"

"You know I don't trust him."

"Well I don't see why," retorted Kylie, which was quite true: she _couldn't_ see why. Eduardo didn't know that Mike suddenly seemed to have shed loads of cash to spend on dinner, nor that he was strangely anxious to retain a crumpled old receipt, so why be in any way suspicious of him? "And it's got nothing to do with you anyway."

"I know," Eduardo said, to her surprise. Kylie had anticipated a long argument, but apparently he had something more pressing on his mind. "Let me tell you why I tried to call last night."

Kylie folded her arms across her chest and raised impatient eyebrows.

"I didn't tell you before," Eduardo went on slowly, "because I didn't want you to get your hopes up. And I don't want you to get your hopes up now either, because it's probably nothing. Ok?"

"What's probably nothing?" Kylie asked confusedly.

"I asked Carlos to run another search on Jack's dad, just to see what came up."

"You did?"

"Yes."

"And…?"

"Well, it's probably nothing…"

"Jesus, Eduardo – just tell me!"

Eduardo nodded. "Ok. Up until about six years ago, a guy called Ryan Daniels was working at this garage in New Jersey. He was the same age as Daniel Ryan."

Kylie's brow furrowed in thought. "Jack's dad was a mechanic," she said.

"Yeah? Well, this Ryan Daniels just didn't show up for work one day. Carlos called the garage yesterday and asked why he left. The guy said he didn't know, but the place was due for an inspection and he'd said something to his workers about proof of identity. He never saw any ID from Ryan Daniels – he just trusted him and hired him. But it looks like he might not have been who he said he was."

Kylie was silent for several moments. Then she said quietly, "That could be him."

"It's a long shot," said Eduardo.

Kylie nodded. "I know," she said, her words running together in her haste. "I don't care. We have to check it out. Where exactly is this garage? Oh, but we won't pick up his trail there, will we, because no one knows where he went! Oh God – what do we do next? How the hell are we supposed to find him?"

"Kylie," ventured Roland. "Calm down. It probably isn't even him."

"So what if it isn't?" Kylie snapped irritably. "It's worth a try."

"That's what I thought," said Eduardo.

Kylie looked at him sharply. Her heart was racing. She knew she shouldn't get her hopes up, but it was impossible not to. Yes, perhaps it _was_ a long shot, perhaps it _was_ nothing… but on the other hand, perhaps it wasn't. Finally they had something to go on, thanks to Eduardo begging a favour from his brother. Kylie could hardly believe he'd done it.

"You asked your brother to do that for Jack?" she asked. "Why?"

"Because I wouldn't wish what Jack must be going through on anyone," Eduardo replied, somewhat evasively. "And anyway, I… I did it for you more than him."

He began to feel self-conscious under Kylie's wide-eyed gaze. She was incredulous. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. She shook her head in amazement, her mouth curving into a small smile as she said, "Thank you."

"Don't sweat it," mumbled Eduardo.

"No, really." Kylie took a step towards him and touched his arm. "Thank you."

x x x

Someone coughed politely, and Sergeant Matthew Trent looked up. He gave an embarrassed little laugh and hastily stowed his magazine under a pile of papers on the desk, saying, "Sorry, um… paperwork. What can I do for you?"

The man looked terrible. He shivered in an old coat that was in too much disrepair to keep out the cold. He had the face of an old man; the rain in his straggly dark hair oozed laboriously down into the cracks and lines framing his tired, sunken eyes. He hadn't shaved for at least a week, probably more. In fact, Trent thought, he looked distinctly like a bum. Now what on earth would a bum be doing at a prison?

"I… I haven't done this for a while," the man said, his voice as tired and as cracked as his complexion. "I'm here to see someone. An inmate."

"Visiting hours start in ten minutes," Trent informed him, glancing at his watch.

"I know," the man nodded. "That's why I'm here now. I… I'm afraid he doesn't know me."

"No?" Trent raised his eyebrows. "Who is it that you want to see?"

"Charles Wright."

Trent's jaw dropped and his eyes widened. He hadn't known that he was capable of such a cartoon-like reaction, and yet here he was, staring agape at somebody – God knew who he was – that had just said the last thing he expected to hear.

After a few seconds, however, Trent recovered to some degree and asked guardedly, "Why would anybody in their right mind want to see Charles Wright?"

"Well," the man said quietly, "maybe I'm not in my right mind."

"What?"

"Sorry – nothing. Please – may I see him?"

Trent narrowed his eyes. This didn't feel right at all. Slowly he asked the stranger, "What's your name?"

The man was perhaps just a little too ready with his answer: "Sandy Jackson."

"Are you a journalist?"

"No."

"So who the hell are you?"

"I'm no one," the man who called himself Sandy Jackson replied. "I just want to see Charles Wright."

**10:05 am:**

"Please, _please_ concentrate," Dr. Mortimer sighed wearily. "Just relax… empty your mind…"

The first time he saw Dr. Mortimer, Jack had been extremely disappointed that he hadn't had a pendulum waved in front of his eyes. All this guy really did was talk, and talk a lot of rubbish at that.

"Jack."

"What?"

"Is your mind empty?"

"Not really."

Jack was leaning back in an armchair with his eyes closed, but he could hear Dr. Mortimer exhaling heavily before going for a little walk around the room. Finally the doctor sat down again, took a deep breath and said, "Jack, do you think perhaps these sessions are… well…"

"A waste of time?" Jack opened one eye. "Well, yeah, kinda."

Dr. Mortimer glanced at his watch. "We have fifty-five minutes left." He sounded very bitter about it. "Shall we try it one more time?"

Jack shrugged. "Might as well."

"All right then. Close your eyes… empty your mind… empty your mind… empty your mind…"

Shut the hell up… shut the hell up… shut the hell up… 

"All right, Jack. You're six years old. You're playing with your friend Kylie in her house. Her grandma is in the kitchen, making you both dinner. You're throwing a ball to each other over the couch" – he had heard the details quite enough times to memorise them – "and it goes over Kylie's head. When she turns round you run away from her…"

"No!" Suddenly Jack snapped his eyes open and sat bolt upright, breathing heavily. "I'm sorry, I… I don't want to talk about that."

Dr. Mortimer blinked at him. "But Jack, that's the whole reason you're - "

"I don't care. I don't want to talk about it. In fact I, I don't want to talk about anything. I'm leaving. Now. Forever." He stood up abruptly and made for the door. "I'm sorry. Sorry I wasted your time. Goodbye."

"Jack, wait!" The doctor was also on his feet, his eyes boring suspiciously into Jack's back. "You've remembered something, haven't you!"

"No, I…" Jack faltered, trying desperately to push the terrifying face of the monster out of his mind.

"Jack, you have to tell me."

"No I don't!" His knuckles blanched as he gripped the door handle tightly.

"Jack, please, if you won't tell me then at least tell your poor mother. She's been going out of her - "

Jack jerked the door open and marched out into the freshly vacuumed corridor.

x x x

Charles Wright was a small, wiry man with mousy hair and pointed features. He had the teeth of an experienced chain smoker, but other than that there was nothing about his appearance to link him to any stereotype of a hardened criminal. Sandy Jackson, as he called himself, wasn't surprised. He had been faintly surprised the first time he came across an average looking man in a place like this – possibly even this very place, now that he thought about it – but had since discovered that there's nothing you can expect from the kinds of people that commit the most despicable deeds imaginable: they looked different every time.

"I don't get many visitors."

Sandy Jackson, staring at Wright through the glass, frowned thoughtfully at him. "You're younger than I expected," he said. "How old are you?"

Wright looked about to argue, but then shrugged and said, "No harm telling you, I guess. I'm thirty-four."

"That's old enough."

"For what?"

"I know what you did," Sandy Jackson said, never breaking eye contact, but his voice shook. "I picked up a paper for the first time in… I don't know. Maybe years – I lose track of time. I read about what you did, and I had to come and see you."

"Why?" Wright looked even more surprised than the desk sergeant had done. "Dude, who the hell are you?"

"I'm looking for my son. He disappeared. I have to know if you…"

Wright cocked an eyebrow. "There are a lot of people like me out there, you know."

"I know. I've met some of them. They all say they never saw him."

Wright ran his eyes slowly over his visitor, scrutinising every little detail. Finally he said, "You sure look like a man who's suffered. How long has he been missing?"

"I don't know." He shook his head despairingly. "I don't know, I…"

"Yeah, ok, you lose track of time. So what if I did? What'll you do to me?"

"What do you think they put glass here for?"

"I think they had people like me in mind, but good point. Look, if I took your son, you don't wanna know. You say you've read about what I did to those kids."

"I know." Jackson nodded. "Believe me, I hope he wasn't one of them. But I have to find out what happened to him."

"Ok." Wright shrugged his shoulders in a manner that suggested he couldn't care less. "So how am I supposed to know if your kid was one of mine or not?"

Jackson scowled at him, disgusted by the convict's choice of words. However he didn't detract from his purpose. "Would you recognise him from a picture?" he asked.

Wright shrugged again. "I might."

Jackson reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled old photograph, which he held up before the glass. Wright obligingly looked at it, his lip curling as he examined the picture of the smiling young boy.

"Nice looking kid," he drawled.

Jackson snatched the picture back and stuffed it into his pocket. "Did you…?"

"Kill him?" suggested Wright. "I don't ever remember seeing his face before."

"So… you didn't…?"

"I don't think so. I don't remember all their faces – you know – off the top of my head. But I think if I saw a picture of a kid I did it to, I'd remember."

"Thank God." Jackson let out a deep sigh, and then just sat for a few moments in a state of catatonia, his eyes no longer on Wright's face. Then quite suddenly he stood up, saying, "I still don't know what happened to him, but I'm relieved it wasn't that."

"What, that's it?" sneered Wright. "You're not going to tell me I never should have been born, I make you sick, stuff like that?"

Jackson gave no answer. He just walked away and didn't look back.

**12:00 pm:**

Jack could hear his mother on the phone downstairs. He wanted to tell her that he had no intention of seeing any more hypnotists, nor any other kind of head doctor for that matter. However she did not appear to be in a very approachable mood just at that moment.

"That's ridiculous!" she exclaimed. "I know I said I could afford it, but I didn't expect anything like this…! Well that's not _good enough_!"

Now that he thought about it, Jack realised that money appeared no longer to be as disposable as it had been when he'd first arrived at the house. When Toby asked for sweets, nine times out of ten he was refused. Deborah never asked for anything, but that didn't mean that she was never given anything, until recently. It made no sense to Jack. His mother and stepfather were both earning good money. Perhaps it was something to do with all this hypnotist lark. Perhaps his mother had expected to be finished with Dr. Mortimer by now.

"Sandra!"

Ted Beaumont had just charged into the hall from the kitchen. Jack wandered from his room and hovered at the top of the stairs. He frowned slightly when he heard his mother say, with a deep sigh, "We'll talk about this later. Goodbye."

She put the phone down, for no apparent reason other than that her husband wanted her to. Jack frowned. She was never that submissive to his father. Ted Beaumont was clutching a piece of paper, which he waved in his wife's face as he demanded loudly, "What the hell have you done with all our money?"

"Will you keep your voice down?" hissed Sandra. "It's Jack's hypnotist. He charges a lot."

Ted grunted. "Who was that on the phone? Some other shrink? Sandra, you got the kid back – that's what matters. Is it really worth our entire savings account to try and find out where he's been all this time?"

Sandra looked furious. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she snapped. "He's my son, Ted!"

"You don't have to worry about it anymore," Jack cut in, slowly descending the stairs, and they both looked up in surprise. "I'm not going to any more doctors."

Sandra frowned at him. "What?"

"You remember what Deb said, Mom, when you first started taking me to that Dr. Mortimer? She said maybe I didn't wanna remember what happened. Well she was right: I don't. So you can spend your money on things we actually need, all right?"

Sandra just stared at him, open-mouthed. Ted looked pleasantly surprised. Jack thought he had better make a quick exit before his mother started to argue.

"I'm going out," he said.

He was out of the front door before Sandra finally found her voice: "I don't believe this! How can he just…? I don't _believe_ this!"

"Thank God for that. Here." Ted snatched up the telephone receiver and thrust it into Sandra's hands. "That call was about him, right? Well you'd better call whoever it was back and tell them their services are no longer required."

"All right then," Sandra nodded, putting the phone to her ear. "I'll call back."

**Friday, 11:30 pm:**

"Well, great night, huh? Boy, am I tired – better get home. Bye!"

Kylie leaned away from Mike as he stooped to kiss her cheek. Not her lips, oddly enough.

"You wanted to go to a bar just now," she said.

"Yeah, well…"

"So you can't be tired at all. Come in."

Mike looked uncomfortable. "I better not…"

"Fine." Kylie didn't enter the building herself. She just leaned against the doorframe, hugging herself tightly. "I'm going to be away tomorrow."

"Oh? How come?"

"The guys and I are going to New Jersey. We wanted to go like a week ago, but we all had college, so… you know. Well, anyway, Roland's coming because he's the only one of us with a car, and Eduardo's coming because he found… it was… well, he's coming, anyway. And Garrett's coming just because he wants to."

"That doesn't sound like a job," remarked Mike.

"It isn't." Shivering, Kylie looked wistfully up at her window in the roof. "Are you sure you don't wanna come in?"

"I better not."

"Fine. It's not a job, no. Not a ghostbusting job, anyway. We're looking for someone. Someone who's missing, I mean. Eduardo's brother – he's a cop – found something that might help."

"In New Jersey?"

"Yeah."

"Who's missing?"

Kylie saw no harm in telling him, so she did. "You remember my friend Jack I told you about? His dad's gone AWOL."

Mike looked far more surprised than Kylie would have imagined. More than surprised, in fact: shocked would have been a better way to describe his reaction. His eyes widened and he asked incredulously, "Jack's father is _missing_?"

"Um." Kylie was momentarily stumped by this response. "Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think you'd be interested."

"Oh boy…" He went for a little walk to the side of the building, and then returned seconds later wearing a more composed expression. "Ky… can I come in?"

Kylie just stared at him for a moment, before finally saying impatiently, "Yes!"

Once they were in her room, he persuaded her to tell him more or less everything. She said that Jack had been missing for some years, and upon his return the police had been unable to find his father. She didn't mention the Grundle. She told Mike again that Eduardo's brother had helped them out a bit, and now she and her friends were planning a trip to New Jersey that might very well turn out to be a wild goose chase.

Mike pursed his lips in thought. "Maybe not," he said at last.

"Maybe," agreed Kylie. "That's why we're going."

"I'd like to help."

"You'd what?"

"I'd like to help. Would you please let me come with you? Believe it or not I do have some experience with police work," he added.

Kylie frowned. "What kind of experience?"

"I was on the better end of it, if that's what you mean," said Mike. "Please."

He could be very persuasive, and Kylie agreed to take him along on the trip. No sooner had she done so than Mike started heading for the door, saying briskly, "Well, early start tomorrow – I'd better let you get your sleep."

"You can stay," Kylie blurted out.

Mike stopped, his palm hovering over the door handle, and looked at her. She couldn't read his expression.

"I had really, _really_ better not," he said at last.

"Why?" Kylie asked desperately. "I don't understand."

"Aw, Kylie…" He walked over to her and took her chin in his hand, looking down at her with an affectionate smile. "You're a great girl. I wouldn't want you to do anything you'd regret."

Kylie was utterly baffled. Until about a week ago she hadn't made a single move on him; it had been entirely the other way around. Now that she was finally expressing some interest in him, why did he seem to want to run away from her? She could only think of one possible explanation: the age difference. He didn't look as old as all that, but even so, there had to be more than ten years between them.

"I know what I'm doing," she said evenly. "You're welcome to stay, if you want to."

"Know what you're doing?" Mike smiled slightly. "You're just a kid, Kylie. Um, look, I'll… see you tomorrow, ok?"

Kylie nodded, aware that the feeling of dejection was showing on her face, but she couldn't shift it. Mike stooped and brushed his lips lightly against hers. It felt patronising, like a consolation prize.

He started to leave, and turned in the doorway. "'Night, Kylie."

"Yeah."

With that, sleeping cat excluded, she was alone again.

**Saturday, 10:40 am:**

"When can we get something to eat?" demanded Eduardo.

"What did you have for breakfast?" asked Mike.

"Is that any of your business?"

"I guess not. I only wondered. I had a big breakfast so I wouldn't get hungry."

"That's really helpful, Mike, thanks."

"Quiet in the back, you kids," Garrett said from the front seat. He was next to Roland, who as ever was driving.

Mike smiled slightly. "Sorry, Dad."

Eduardo scowled, but he didn't say anything more. Kylie was relieved. She probably had the warmest seat in the car, sitting between Eduardo and Mike, but their bickering was giving her a headache. Garrett had most likely insisted on sitting up front purely for laughs – those three on the backseat was bound to be a bad combination. Kylie supposed it wasn't so much bickering as Eduardo taking exception to everything Mike said. She almost wished Eduardo wasn't there, but she knew she'd had to grant his request to join the excursion. He deserved it. She only had to think of what he had done for her, and for Jack, to feel an overwhelming sense of warmth towards him.

It was Mike who shouldn't be there. He seemed to think he could help, but unlike Eduardo he had yet to prove himself. Kylie let out a small sigh, which seemed to go unnoticed. Why had she told Mike so much? If they had just done this straightaway, as soon as they had the information, he might never even have found out about it.

Kylie had been unable to concentrate on anything all week. Her performance at college had certainly suffered. She'd constantly found herself wishing that she had put her foot down and insisted on driving to this garage immediately. But everyone, it seemed, was against her on that. Egon had protested that he couldn't get cover for the team at such short notice. Roland had insisted on finding out whether this garage was still running, and when he discovered that it was he hadn't bothered to enquire after its opening times, and so reasoned that it was unlikely to operate on Sundays.

"So," Mike interrupted her thoughts. "How long did you say it was since this Ryan Daniels left the garage?"

"Six years," Eduardo said impatiently. "I told you."

"That's a long time."

"Duh."

"Well," Mike persisted, "I hope you're not expecting to find him any time soon. Kylie." His tone softened. "I don't want you to be disappointed. I mean, six years. You do realise that this guy's trail will be cold…?"

"Of course I realise that," Kylie snapped irritably.

"Only… well, maybe this wasn't the best place to start. No one's exactly gonna know where he went. It might be better to look for - "

"We have to start here," Eduardo interrupted sharply. "All we're doing today is trying to find out whether this was the guy we're looking for. Until we know that, there's nothing else we _can_ do."

Mike nodded. "You're right," he said quietly. "You're right…"

"That's why I brought this," added Kylie, pulling a worn photograph out of her pocket, which she handed to Mike. "I know it's not ideal but it's the only one I could find, and I can't exactly ask Jack."

Mike studied the photograph carefully. "Don't want him to know, huh?"

"He'd be far more disappointed than I ever could."

The photo she had given him produced a small smile from Mike. It was cute, showing two children – a boy and a girl of about four or five years – leaning out of the laps of their fathers and building an impressive sandcastle against a charming backdrop of a calm sea and a cloudless sky.

"You were a beautiful little girl," remarked Mike. "Is that your dad?"

It was a pretty dumb question, but Kylie couldn't think of a cutting reply. She simply said, "Yeah."

"Who took the picture?"

"Why do you wanna know _that_?"

Mike smiled slightly. "I don't know. I always wonder with photos like this, where everyone's having a good time. It's like you know someone's missing."

"I don't know," said Kylie. "I guess either my mom or Jack's. Probably Jack's. Jill spent most of that weekend working on her tan."

When Mike flipped the photo over he saw a small explanatory note scrawled on the back in blue ballpoint pen: _"New Jersey, summer 1983"_.

"Summer nineteen eighty-three," he read aloud. "I guess when this was taken I must have been about the age you guys are now."

"Yeah, you're older than me, I get it," muttered Kylie, snatching the picture back.

"Yeah, well, anyway," Mike went on hastily. "It's a while since I came to New Jersey, but I'm assuming you can buy picture frames here. Because I think that's what we should do."

"Buy picture frames?" Garrett asked confusedly, turning in his seat to look at Mike.

"Well, just one. And it's not the frame we want. It's the demonstrative photo they put in it because whoever makes picture frames assumes we're too stupid to know what to do with them. We need a guy about the age Jack's dad was when this was taken, or maybe a little bit older – something we can show to these garage people."

"I get it," Eduardo cut in. His father had started to use this ploy on people when he realised how insufferably stupid crime witnesses could be. "You show somebody a picture and ask if they recognise the guy, and most of the time they say yes even if they've never seen him before in their life."

Mike nodded. "Exactly. They don't really lie – they just get caught up in the moment and their subconscious mind creates a false memory from the picture."

"You sound like a criminal psychologist," Eduardo said scathingly.

"Sorry. Maybe that's not quite right, but for whatever reason, it happens. So we show them a dummy picture first, and if they say yes it's definitely Ryan Daniels they'd know him anywhere, we move on and find someone with a more reliable memory."

Roland, who was concentrating hard on the road, finally spoke: "Sounds good."

"And," Mike went on, "we might be able to get this picture of Jack's dad enhanced. Hey, look, civilisation!" as a small building appeared on the horizon. "Ok, here's the plan: we stop and feed Eduardo, and I'll find someplace that will enhance this picture and sell us some stranger's photo, agreed?"

**01:30 pm:**

It was a small garage in a small town, and it took some finding. Still, they managed it eventually, and by the time they got there Kylie's heart was pounding furiously. After Roland had stopped the car she just sat there, dreading what she might hear. Ryan Daniels and Daniel Ryan might not be the same person after all. In spite of a few coincidences – the name, age, vocation and the mysterious disappearance – it hardly seemed likely. Or maybe they _were_ the same person, but none of the current employees had been working there long enough to remember him. Then what would she do? Traipse the country looking for some veteran of this garage, and end up being disappointed anyway? Or not. What if Jack's dad _had_ worked here? No one knew where he was now, so how in God's name was she supposed to find him?

Someone grasped her right hand. Presumably it was whoever was sitting on her right. Kylie couldn't remember which of them it was, so she turned her head to look. It was Eduardo. He gave her an encouraging smile and said simply, "Good luck."

Someone took hold of her left hand. Mike, presumably. "I'll go with you."

Kylie shook her head. "You don't have to."

"Please. I know what to ask. And besides, I think you need the moral support. Come on – let's do this thing."

Mike climbed out of the car, still clutching her hand, and Kylie followed. He pulled two photographs out of his coat pocket: an enlarged close-up of Daniel Ryan's face, smiling with all the happiness of those lost years; and a picture of a woodenly handsome man with an artificial smile and overlarge teeth.

"How much did all that cost?" asked Kylie.

"Not much at all. You don't have to pay me back."

"You can't pay for everything."

"No, Kylie – _you _can't pay for everything. You're a student."

"I guess Tower Records pays well, huh?"

"Better than being a student. Shall we go in?"

Kylie glanced at the entrance to the building: open double doors beyond which two young men in navy overalls tinkered underneath the bonnet of a mud-streaked white car. She then pulled her eyes away and looked down at her feet.

"What's up?" Mike asked with concern.

"I'm very nervous."

"I know. I'm here, all right?"

He put his hands on her shoulders, and Kylie took a step back from him. She was sick of this. Sometimes he just took the liberty of touching her, but whenever she tried to reciprocate he'd drop her like a hot potato.

She told him: "I'm sick of this, Mike."

"Sick of what?"

"Of you – of all this blowing hot and cold."

Mike sighed. "I'm sorry, Kylie. I only want to comfort you."

"That's it?" She folded her arms across her chest. "That's all you want?"

"Yes."

"I don't get it. I thought you liked me. I thought you _wanted _me."

Mike looked uncomfortable. "I can see why you might have thought that…"

"After our first date you kept bugging me to see you again. You wouldn't stop calling. You kissed me! Loads of times! What's changed?"

"Nothing." He let out another sigh. "Nothing's changed. I _do_ like you. You're a smart, beautiful girl, and I never should have touched you. I'm so sorry, Kylie."

Kylie just stared at him for a few moments. She couldn't understand a word he was saying. There was a long, uncomfortable silence, which Mike eventually broke.

"I have a confession to make."

"Oh?"

"I'm not really Goth."

Kylie didn't know what to say. That might even be the most puzzling thing he had said so far. Then, finally, she said what was on her mind: "I don't understand."

"That first night you came to my apartment… I guess you could say I was just trying it out," Mike explained – or at least he attempted to explain. "I kept it up… well… because of you, to be honest. I _did_ want to keep seeing you. But I… well, I'm not Goth at heart, if you see what I mean."

"Right," Kylie said slowly. "Ok. Well, thanks for telling me. We should probably go question those mechanics now, huh?"

She wasn't particularly aware of the three pairs of eyes watching from the Mustang. Eduardo, Garrett and Roland sat there in silence, peering out through the windows, all wondering why Kylie and Mike didn't just get on with it.

"What are they talking about?" Eduardo said at last.

"Perhaps he's giving her a crash course in FBI training," Garrett said dryly. "It wouldn't surprise me, you know, after all that other stuff he's come out with. There's something _very_ suspicious about that guy."

Eduardo narrowed his eyes on the back of Garrett's head. "Duh. I've been saying that for months."

"Why did we bring him?" asked Roland.

"Good question," remarked Garrett. "I assume Kylie told us."

"I think she said something about moral support," Eduardo muttered bitterly. "Or help. Maybe both. So like is he her boyfriend or not? I don't get it."

"From here, it looks like not," observed Garrett. "This is all very weird. Remember how we first met Mike – he thought he had a ghost. We told him he didn't, and then we never heard any more about it. All he's done since then is groom Kylie."

"Well whatever they're saying," Roland said soberly, "it looks pretty intense."

"I wonder if she's slept with him." Eduardo let the thought escape through his lips without really meaning to.

Garrett rolled his eyes. "You _would_ wonder that, Eddie."

"Yeah, well, I hope she hasn't. If she has, it'll hurt more." Eduardo's eyes narrowed on Mike's retreating form as he and Kylie made their way into the garage. "She's heading for a fall with him."

They all silently hoped that this venture would lead somewhere, because Kylie must surely by now have had her fair share of disappointment. They watched as Mike officiously summoned two mechanics out from underneath the bonnet of a car and thrust a photograph in their faces. The moment the two men laid eyes on the picture they began nodding firmly, exchanging looks of utter certainty as their minds concocted some fantasy about working with the picture frame model six years earlier.

"People are such morons," Garrett sighed despairingly.

Mike took back the photo and continued talking to the two mechanics. Moments later one of them disappeared from view. Mike continued to chat to the other mechanic while Kylie stood by and watched.

"Why is she letting him do all the talking?" demanded Eduardo. "That ain't like her."

"Well," said Garrett, "_he's_ the FBI agent."

"Wannabe FBI agent, at the very least," mused Roland. "I suppose it's possible that he just watches a lot of TV."

The mechanic reappeared, followed by an older man with greying hair. This one looked a better bet than either of the two younger workers, but of course it was likely that he would also fail the photograph test.

Mike tried it. He showed the older man the picture of the toothy smile. The man took the photo between his fingers, squinted at it and studied it very carefully for a few moments before finally handing it back to Mike with an apologetic shake of the head. He said something – presumably something along the lines of, _I've never seen that grinning idiot before in my life._

Mike gave him the second picture: the picture of Daniel. Again the man studied it carefully. He looked uncertain, so Kylie plunged a hand into her coat pocket and offered him a third photo: presumably the original beach picture, which Mike had returned to her following his expedition two towns away.

The older man studied both the pictures in detail. Roland became aware that he was holding his breath, and he realised that Garrett and Eduardo were equally transfixed. Well, at least the windows wouldn't steam up too badly.

Finally the man nodded, and said something fairly lengthy. As she listened, Kylie seemed to sway slightly until she grabbed hold of Mike's arm. The man proffered the photograph to her, but she just stood there immobile, so Mike took it. He then spoke to their benefactor, presumably thanking him, and finally led Kylie back to the car, his arm around her shoulders. She allowed him to guide her, her eyes staring blankly ahead. She looked utterly shell-shocked.

"Well?" Roland asked unnecessarily, when Mike and Kylie were both back in the car.

At last Kylie found her voice. "It was him," she said, shaking her head incredulously. "It was definitely him."

_To be continued…_


	5. Chapter 5

_Extreme Ghostbusters: _**A Little Boy Lost**

Part 5

**Monday, 07:40 pm:**

"Eddie, shut the hell up and listen. I ran a search on Ryan Daniels, a lot of guys came up and I got in touch with all of them. _That_ Ryan Daniels does not exist! I can't find him for you! How many more times?"

Eduardo sighed impatiently. "He was Jack's dad!"

"Probably," said Carl. "Possibly not."

"He was! That's why you can't find him! He's probably been using another name!"

"Such as?"

"How the fuck should I know?"

"Hey!" barked Carl. "Kevin's in the next room."

"Sorry," muttered Eduardo.

"I don't know what you expect me to do."

"You're the cop, Carlos. What did you expect _us_ to do after we'd been to New Jersey?"

"I expected you to come back disappointed."

Eduardo raised his eyebrows. "You did?"

"I never pretended that I didn't. I said it was a long shot, didn't I?"

Eduardo nodded. "Yeah, you did."

"Dinner, you guys!" the voice of Beth, Carl's wife, trilled from the kitchen.

"What, that's it?" demanded Eduardo, as his brother turned and headed towards the smell of roast chicken. "You're just gonna give up?"

"If there was anything else I could do," said Carl, "I'd do it."

Eduardo wasn't convinced. He suspected that Carlos didn't want to get his fingers burnt. He was nothing to do with the Daniel Ryan case, and probably thought it best if his superiors didn't find out that he had secretly gone through the procedure all over again. If what Carl had done and the ensuing discovery were official, there would be cops all over alias Ryan Daniels' trail right now.

_Dad would've done more_, Eduardo couldn't help thinking, and he was probably right. Alberto Rivera was no better than every other man on the corrupt and over privileged NYPD, or so his younger son thought, but he would have done anything for his kids.

**Nine days later:**

"Oh, it's you again." The man at the desk did not look pleased to see his visitor. "I'm not letting you have another look at our books, Lawson, ok?"

"I don't want another look at your books," Lawson replied evenly. "I would like to see an inmate."

"Oh yeah? Who?"

"Charles Wright."

"Jesus H. Christ, not this again. What is it with people wanting to see that asshole?"

"It's bizarre, I know. May I?"

"Sure, sure. I suppose someone's paying you thousands for this, you lousy overpaid under worked - "

"Actually," Lawson interrupted, "this one's a favour. And afterward I'm gonna think about jacking it in – maybe get a nice easy job at Tower Records or something."

x x x

"Hey!" Garrett broke the dismal silence that had haunted the firehouse for almost two weeks. "You know what we should do? We should go to the police station, and me and Roland should create a diversion while Ky and Eddie hack into one of their computers."

Kylie wrinkled her nose. "What for?"

"For laughs," grinned Garrett. "And maybe try to find Jack's dad ourselves."

"It's not gonna work," said Eduardo, to a nod of agreement from Roland. "Because they would catch us; we wouldn't find anything anyway, and your plan is flawed. Roland knows more about computers than I do."

"But this is a _police_ computer," explained Garrett. "It's in your genes, Eddie."

"Yeah? Well whatever's in my jeans is gonna stay there. It really, _really_ wouldn't work. We need someone professional to do this."

"Like a private investigator?" suggested Roland. "It might be worth considering…"

"Don't you think I've thought of that?" Kylie snapped irritably. Then she let out a deep sigh and said, "Ok, look. I talked to Mike about what to do next after we got back from New Jersey. I suggested hiring a private investigator – none of us can afford it but my dad would definitely help us out. So I asked Mike what he thought, and he told me not to."

Eduardo scowled. "Do you always do what Mike tells you?"

"No," said Kylie, "but he seemed so… I don't know… sure. He told me he'd 'deal with it'."

"And what exactly did he mean by that?" asked Roland.

"I don't know. All he said was, 'I'll deal with it,' and he'd get in touch when he found something."

"And has he got in touch?" asked Garrett.

Kylie shook her head. "I haven't heard from him for over a week."

"So that's it?" asked Eduardo. "You're just gonna wait? You trust him that much?"

"Well," said Kylie, "I don't see why he'd say it if he didn't mean it. I mean, it's always possible that he's just crazy, but he… he seemed to know what he was doing when we took him to New Jersey."

Roland nodded. "I have to agree with you there, Ky."

"Anyway," added Kylie, "if he doesn't get in touch soon I'm going over to his apartment. The jerk still has my photo."

x x x

"I really hope you can help me. I've been working flat out almost two weeks for no pay and you're the only one I can find who has yet to die for what he did."

Charles Wright cocked an eyebrow. "The only what?"

"The only child killer around here who's had a mysterious visitor in the last ten years," said Lawson. "Believe me there were plenty, but they all got what they deserved already."

"Yeah? Y'know, I think I'm gonna appeal against my sentence. Who's the most expensive lawyer you know?"

"I don't care for lawyers. Now shut up and listen, and answer me when I ask you a question."

"Dude, who _are _you?"

"I," Lawson said nastily, "am someone with the power to make your stay here very unpleasant if you don't cooperate. You had a visitor here a few weeks ago, didn't you? A man in his forties, maybe early fifties?"

"He looked older."

Lawson nodded. "I daresay he did. Now I want you to imagine this man about ten or fifteen years ago – or maybe longer, if he looked as old as all that. I'm going to show you a photograph of the man I'm trying to find, and you're going to tell me if you think it's the same guy that visited you. Understand?"

"Sure," leered Wright.

Lawson reached into his pocket and pulled out a photograph of a man with chiselled features and a toothy smile. He held it up to the glass. Wright wrinkled his nose.

"What a fag."

"Is it him?"

"No way."

"Would you study the picture a little more closely, please?"

"Dude, it's not him."

"All right." Lawson shoved the photo back into his pocket. "What happened when this guy came to visit you?"

"He asked me if I killed his kid, and he showed me a picture."

"Of the kid?"

"Yes."

"Boy or girl?"

"Boy," said Wright. "Nice looking kid too."

Lawson shook his head. "You're disgusting. It sounds like that was the first time you saw this kid. Can I take it you didn't kill him?"

"I really don't think I killed him."

"I'm going to show you another picture." He produced a second photograph from his pocket and held it up to the glass: a boy and a girl building a sandcastle on the beach with their fathers. "Ignore the girl – look at the boy. Is that the kid whose picture this man showed you?"

Wright squinted at the picture. "Could be. It's not that clear. He's cute, though. So is she. Lucky dads, huh?"

Lawson's first instinct was to snatch the photograph away, but he wasn't done with it yet. He took a deep, calming breath and then asked, "Do you recognise either of those men?"

"Like I say, buddy, it's not that clear. They could be anyone."

Lawson withdrew the photograph and produced yet another: a close-up of one of the men on the beach, not exactly what you might call crystal clear, but better.

"What?" demanded Wright. "Is that the guy who wanted to know if I killed his kid?"

"You tell me."

Wright studied the picture more carefully this time; then he said, "It really could be. He's aged about forty years and he don't shave or smile no more, but it could be."

"Right."

Lawson rose to his feet and left the prison, ignoring the looks he was getting from the police or the prison guards or whoever the hell they were. It wasn't as though he'd never been to a place like that before, but the atmosphere wasn't something he could get used to. He walked out onto the street and headed for the nearest bench. He sat down, inhaled a few deep breaths of dirty New York air and started to think.

What could he do now? Ask around, obviously. He had no other choice. There were people begging on the streets – surely some of them were likely to have been there a few weeks previously. They would certainly give him information for money or food, and maybe even reliable information if he stressed that they would still be paid even if they had seen nothing. The nearest apartment blocks might be useful as well. Somebody had to have seen him.

But before he went down that road, there was something he had to do. He definitely had a fair amount of information now, and he knew a certain somebody out there who was hungry for information.

x x x

"Kylie, fantastic! You're here."

It took Kylie a moment to recognise him, and not just because his clothes were dripping green slime – obviously he had met with quite a warm reception downstairs. Still, slime or no, those clothes were unfamiliar: faded jeans and a plain grey t-shirt. His face and his hair seemed somehow different as well, but she recognised his magnetic dark eyes quickly enough.

"Mike!" she exclaimed in surprise. "Wow – you really aren't Goth."

Janine, obviously curious, had followed the visitor upstairs, and the sound of his name brought Roland hurrying in from the next room. Garrett and Eduardo hadn't been paying particular attention, not having recognised the visitor either, but when Kylie said his name they both looked up expectantly.

"Sorry I haven't been in touch," Mike went on. "It took a while to find Ryan Daniels' name again, but after a few days of searching I found out that someone of that name visited Gregg Samuels in prison in nineteen eighty-nine. You remember Gregg Samuels – the child killer?"

Kylie simply nodded, her eyes fixed firmly on his face, transfixed.

"Ok, well, all this guy had was a name: he didn't claim to be a friend or family member to Samuels. I asked around, and called all the prisons within a hundred mile radius – I know it's a pretty large area, but hey – to enquire after similar occasions. I found a pattern. Over the last ten-odd years, somebody has been paying visits to convicted child killers for no apparent reason. He used different aliases, but I think it's the same guy. He always used variations of the same four names. As well as Ryan Daniels there was Ryan Sanders, Ryan Jackson, Jack Daniels, Sandy Daniels, Daniel Sanders, Ryan Sanderson, Daniel Sanderson…"

"Oh my God!" exclaimed Kylie. "That's him! It has to be! His wife's name was Sandra!"

"Oh, right," said Mike. "Now don't get too excited, Kylie – I haven't been able to find the guy yet. However I _did_ talk to someone who's seen him recently. He was calling himself Sandy Jackson. I'm afraid the witness won't know where he is now – it was an inmate: Charles Wright."

"_Charles Wright_?" exclaimed Roland. "Oh my God! Do you know what that guy _did_? Why would anyone go through the trauma of approaching him to ask outright whether he killed their son? I, um, assume that's what he did," he added.

Mike nodded. "He did. That's what he's been doing all this time, so I guess he's been reading the papers, which is puzzling because I would have thought he'd have read about Jack's return. It _was_ in the news, wasn't it? I think I remember reading something about it before, um… before I got involved with all of this."

Kylie sighed. "Maybe he just missed it," she said quietly. "God, what an idiot – why couldn't he have just picked up a paper on the right day? So how do we find him, Mike?"

"I can go back to the prison and try to follow his trail from there," Mike told her patiently. "But it's not going to be easy, and of course there's a chance I'll find out it's not him – Wright couldn't be sure from your picture, Kylie. Oh, here." He reached into his pocket and produced Kylie's photograph, now very dog-eared. "I don't think I'll be able to use this again – it sounds like he's changed a lot, and if a guy who talked to him in depth barely recognised him then I don't think your average passer by on the street will - "

"Are you going back there now?" Kylie asked urgently. "I'll go with you."

"Kylie…"

"I'm going." She stood up abruptly. "You can't stop me."

"How are you getting about?" asked Roland. "I could drive you if you'd like."

"Well," said Mike, with a sigh of resignation, "I need every penny I can get my hands on right now – or at least I will soon, almost definitely – so I should probably try to save on bus fare. All right, Kylie, you can come. But let me do the talking, ok?"

All the time he was talking, Mike had been aware of an extremely hostile pair of eyes boring into him. Finally Eduardo stopped merely staring and spoke: "You're a cop. Aren't you."

"No." Mike shook his head. "I'm not. Now look, I don't want you all tagging along this time. Kylie can come, and Roland's the one with the wheels, but that's it."

"Fine." Garrett was also watching Mike with some suspicion. He beckoned Roland over to him, as Kylie began to follow her would-be lover from the room, and said in a low tone, "Look after her."

Roland nodded. "Of course I will."

"And try to find out _exactly _who that guy is."

"Hey!" Kylie called impatiently. "We haven't got all day, Roland!"

"It was nice meeting you, Miss Melnitz," Mike smiled pleasantly at Janine, as he led the small procession from the room.

There was silence for several moments after Roland, Kylie and Mike had gone. It was Janine who eventually broke it with, "I don't understand."

"Well don't look at me," said Garrett. "Or him," and he nodded towards Eduardo. "We've been trying to figure out what's going on there for days."

"Months," corrected Eduardo. "Didn't I tell you there was something not right about him from the start?"

"Did you?" asked Janine.

"Yes," Eduardo returned irritably. "That was Mike Fisher – he called us out to a false alarm at the end of last year."

"The guy Kylie's been seeing?" Janine looked dubious. "He's nothing like you guys described him."

"Right," Eduardo intoned darkly. "That's because he's been acting ever since he met us in order to entice Kylie. That man," he added dramatically, "is nothing more than a honey trap."

Janine, understandably, looked puzzled. "Why?" she asked.

"Hmm…" Eduardo pulled a face. "I'm working on that."

x x x

"We're still in Manhattan," remarked Kylie, as they climbed out of Roland's car.

Mike nodded. "Well spotted."

"So he's been right here this whole time!"

"Well," said Mike, "no, not really. He was working in New Jersey for a while, wasn't he? And believe me, he's been around. You remember I told you I scoured a hundred-mile radius? Well, he might even have gone beyond it."

"So why come back here?" asked Kylie.

"If he hoped to find Jack," said Roland, "it makes sense that he'd keep coming back to where he lost him."

"I guess." Kylie let out a deep sigh. "Come on then, Mike – where do we start? You seem to know what you're doing."

"Yeah, I do," agreed Mike. "You've, um… realised that I'm not exactly who I said I was, haven't you?"

"Ah-ha. So who are you anyway?"

"You haven't figured it out?"

Kylie pulled a face. "Should I have?"

"I don't know – I guess not. I mean, maybe, if you thought about it… Well, I would rather not tell you."

"How come?"

"I think it would upset you quite considerably."

"Aw, jeez…"

"Guys," Roland cut in. "Let's do this thing, shall we?"

For quite some time Roland and Kylie hovered while Mike questioned everyone in the street and showed them the photo of the picture frame model. Interestingly a lot of people swore blind that they often saw the guy fishing the dregs of old sandwiches out of bins; but quite a lot of people also shook their heads apologetically at the photo frame guy, and were subsequently shown Mike's enhanced detail from the beach picture. Unfortunately none of them recognised the face, but there were a few nods in response to the description of Daniel Ryan ten years after the trauma of losing his son.

It had been dark for about an hour when Mike finally turned round and said, "You kids ought to go home. This is going to take hours – maybe days. Or weeks."

Roland could see by the light of an overhead lamppost that Kylie looked about to argue. He put an arm around her shoulders and said gently, "He's right, Ky. It's not like we're even helping."

"All right," Kylie agreed grudgingly. "All right, Roland, you can take me home. Are you gonna keep doing this, Mike?"

"Oh yes. I owe you that much at least."

"Please tell me who you are. I won't get mad – I promise."

Mike shook his head. "You might find out soon anyway."

"How?"

"Kylie, please – I have to get on with this. Go home, ok? Get some sleep. I promise that I will call you the minute I find him."

With that he walked away into the night. Kylie wriggled free of Roland's arm and turned back towards where they had left the Mustang, now quite some distance away.

"Should I have figured him out by now?" she asked irritably. "Am I missing something really obvious?"

"I don't know," said Roland. "Maybe."

Kylie looked at him sharply. "_You_ haven't figured him out, have you?"

"If I had," Roland replied evenly, "I'd tell you."

"Yeah, I know you would," sighed Kylie. "Sorry. Hey – did you notice that coincidence when Mike was reciting his list of Jack's dad's aliases?"

"Huh? Oh, you mean Ryan Jackson." Roland nodded. He had a younger brother of that name. "Yeah. Weird. Kylie, will you… will you be ok by yourself tonight?"

"I'll be fine," Kylie shrugged dismissively. "Don't worry about me."

**07:40 am:**

Kylie, half-asleep, thrust out her arm and pushed the trilling phone onto the floor. She then leaned over the edge of the bed and managed to pick up the receiver.

"Mmm?"

"Kylie? It's Mike."

"Mike!" She was awake in an instant. "What happened?"

"I think I traced him to a homeless shelter."

"You're shitting me!"

"I _think_ I have," said Mike, "but don't get excited because it really, _really_ might not be him."

"Oh shut the hell up – of _course _it's him!" snapped Kylie.

"Kylie…"

"Have you been there yet?"

"No."

"So what the hell are you waiting for? Tell me where it is and I'll meet you there."

**08:55 am:**

"I wanted you here," explained Mike, "because he knows you. You'll recognise each other, if it _is_ him, and you can explain, if - "

"If it's him – yes, I know. Come on – it's nearly nine. They might be up by now." Kylie pushed open the small wooden door. "What are we waiting for?"

There was an extremely difficult young woman at the front desk who refused to admit visitors. Mike flashed some kind of ID at her, which didn't surprise Kylie at all, but she was sorry that she hadn't been quick enough to get a look at it.

"No visitors," the difficult woman insisted.

"Please believe me," said Mike. "He will _want_ to see us."

"Hmm." She cocked her head to one side. "What's his name?"

"Ah…" Mike's cool expression wavered slightly. "Well, his real name is Daniel Ryan."

The woman shook her head. "No one of that name here."

"Well," Mike went on, "what about Ryan Daniels? Jackson? Sanders? Sanderson? Any combination of those names or something similar…?"

"Jack's dad," Kylie broke in gently. Since she had entered the building her heart had been pounding with anticipation, and only now was she able to find her voice. "Just go and… and tell them that Kylie Griffin wants to see Jack's dad."

Though she did it grudgingly, the woman obeyed. She left the desk unattended, which could never be a very bad thing, because it was literally just a desk – this place apparently didn't go in for paperwork.

Mike watched as Kylie bounced impatiently on the balls of her feet.

"Are you ok?" he asked.

"Shut up, Mike."

Mike shut up. He fished around in his pocket and pulled out a cell phone, on which Kylie's eyes narrowed with deep suspicion.

"I never knew you had a cell phone."

"Yeah, I, um… don't tell you everything."

"Shut up, Mike."

They didn't have long to wait. Only seconds ticked by before a bearded man in a filthy trench coat hurtled into the lobby. Mike looked at Kylie for her reaction, and it was everything he could have hoped for. Her eyes and mouth were wide with… what? Disbelief, maybe. She certainly looked amazed, as though all that certainty had meant nothing.

She found her voice again at last. "Oh my _God_!" He had changed almost beyond recognition. Almost. "It's you! It's really you!"

"Kylie!" exclaimed Daniel Ryan, as she hurtled across the room towards him. "I can't believe this. What… why…?"

"Oh my God, you… you… _idiot_!" exclaimed Kylie, throwing her out arms wide for emphasis. Her eyes filled with tears that she couldn't explain even to herself. "What the hell are you doing here? Do you know how much trouble we went to trying to find you? Why couldn't you just… just…"

"Kylie, what the hell is going on?"

"We found him, you moron! We found Jack!"

For a moment, Daniel didn't react. Kylie continued to stare at him with sheer exasperation. Then, very slowly, his jaw began to drop. His eyes became glazed, and he shook his head incredulously.

"No," he murmured. "It can't… you can't…"

Kylie sensed Mike at her shoulder, and she turned to face him. He was frowning down at the cell phone in his hand, pushing buttons.

"Mike," Kylie said gently, all ill feeling forgotten, at least for the moment. "Thank you so much for - "

"Don't," interrupted Mike. "Kylie, please, don't thank me. Excuse me – I have to make a call." He put the phone to his ear, and then waited a few seconds. "Hello, Mrs. Beaumont? This is Michael Lawson… No, I haven't – just shut up and listen. I thought you might be interested to know that I've found your husband."

x x x

Kylie had been so distracted with the possibility of finding Jack's dad that it hadn't occurred to her to call the firehouse and let them know she'd be late. Janine, on Egon's instruction, was calling her apartment for the third time that morning. Roland had already calmly suggested that the Jack/Mike business might be keeping Kylie for some reason, but Eduardo had some plan about going to her apartment "just in case".

"Kylie!" exclaimed Egon, when the unlikely trio of Kylie, Mike and some shabby looking guy walked in. Janine put down the phone halfway through dialling. "We were worried about you. Where have you been?"

"Oh, sorry, I should have called," Kylie said blankly. "Mike found Jack's dad. Um, this is Jack's dad." She gestured vaguely towards Daniel. "We were just fetching him. Look, I hope you don't mind, but when we called Jack and his mother we told them to come here. They're on their way now. Well, Sandra said they'd try to get a flight. They're probably at the airport – I don't know. Anyway they're coming here."

"Kylie, you're rambling," observed Janine. "Actually, you look a little strange. Are you feeling ok?"

"I found out who Mike really is."

"Oh!"

"I'm so stupid. I should have spotted it sooner."

"I'm sorry, Kylie," mumbled Mike.

"Um." Kylie turned towards Daniel. "Mr. Ryan…"

"Daniel."

"Ok. Look, why don't you go and, and get cleaned up. Jack won't recognise you like that. And maybe get something to eat. You're homeless these days, aren't you? Egon will show you where everything is."

"Oh. All right." Egon stepped forward. "Come with me please, sir."

Daniel Ryan, evidently in some kind of trance, allowed himself to be led away. Mike cut a glance at Kylie. She just stood there, not meeting his gaze.

"I really am sorry," he said eventually.

Kylie snorted derisively. "Are you?"

Janine moved away and busied herself on the opposite side of the room.

"I really am."

"It's your job. Don't you do this kind of thing all the time?"

"Well," said Mike, "I've only ever done two honey traps before. One was a woman who deliberately pushed her husband off a cliff. Don't ask me why. And the other was a single mom who kept shaking her baby and blaming it on her ex. Her mother hired me because she was scared for the baby and for her daughter's sanity, and I thought maybe I'd end up feeling sorry for this woman – like I was expecting her to be falling apart and totally unable to cope on her own – but it turned out she was just a heartless bitch. She'd leave the kid on his own for hours, and every time he made a noise she'd just go in there and, and, well, shake him. And the woman who murdered her husband wasn't very nice either, obviously. And, well, Sandra Beaumont made you sound almost as bad as both of them put together."

"I can imagine."

"This case didn't sound as bad as those two, nor some of the other stuff I've done. And business has been slow – I was practically broke when I took the job."

"You don't have to explain yourself to me."

"I want to," said Mike. "Please. I'm sorry because I've hurt you and you really didn't deserve any of this. Since I've gotten to know you I've realised that you're not the monster Sandra Beaumont made you out to be. I don't like her, you know."

"I suspected as much from your phone conversation," remarked Kylie, her lip curling slightly with amusement.

"When you told me Jack's father was missing, I was just…"

"You looked very surprised."

"I was more than surprised. There's no word for how I felt on hearing that. Sandra knew he was missing, didn't she?"

"Yes."

"Well, she told me that her husband was dead."

Kylie's eyebrows shot skyward. "Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Perhaps she thought he was."

"Perhaps she did, but if they split up and then he was never heard of again… that _is_ what happened, isn't it?"

Kylie nodded.

"Well, if that was the last she saw of him and then she tells me he's dead, that could only ever be a guess. I mean, if she knew he was missing, why not get me searching for him straightaway?"

"I don't know," sighed Kylie. "God, I'm an idiot. I guess this explains why you didn't want to sleep with me."

"Oh, no, I _did_ want to sleep with you," Mike hastened to assure her.

Kylie cocked an eyebrow. "It's just not ethical, huh?"

"It really isn't. And you're so young. Look, I really hope I… I hope I haven't disillusioned you or anything. I'm not exactly used to breaking teenagers' hearts."

"Don't flatter yourself, Michael. You didn't break my heart."

"Oh, good. Do, um… do you want me to leave?"

"Kinda," said Kylie. "Don't you want to stick around and talk to your client?"

"Well," said Mike, "I _will_ have to talk to her at some point. That is, I'll have to write her a cheque."

"A cheque? Why?"

"My fee, plus expenses. The dinners and stuff. Sandra Beaumont paid for some of your meals over the last few months, I'm afraid. But now she wants it back, and I can't exactly refuse, because I didn't do what she hired me to do."

"Will you have any money after that?"

"Er, guess not," Mike laughed awkwardly. "Do you care?"

Kylie shook her head. "Not much."

"Well, look, I'd better go. She's the one who wants the cheque, after all – she'll come and find me."

"She should leave you something for finding her son's father."

"I did that for _you_. I hoped maybe it might help to make up for all of this."

"Well." Kylie's gaze dropped to her feet. "I am so, _so_ glad that you found him. And I suppose what you did to me is her fault more than yours. I mean, if it wasn't you it would have been someone else, right?"

"Does that mean you forgive me?"

"I don't know." Kylie looked up again, into his eyes. "Just forget it."

"Ok," Mike nodded. "Kylie, out of interest… _do_ you know what happened to Jack?"

"Yes I do, actually. But I'm sure as hell not telling _you_."

"I didn't think you would. Well, I'll go. And… sorry."

He turned and traipsed towards the front door. Kylie stood and watched him go, a lump forming in her throat. She wasn't quite sure how she felt about all this. She could feel cheated, having spent some time convinced that she was the object of a handsome older man's affections. She could feel disgusted with herself, if she thought about it, for allowing herself to be duped for so long. Her stomach seemed to turn over when she thought about all of the times she had let him touch her. But above it all, what she really felt was anger, and not towards Mike.

Janine was at her side in a second, with a strong yet gentle arm around the younger woman's shoulders.

"They're all the same, Kylie. When one of them does something like that to you, you just have to roll with the punches, get back on your feet and move on."

Kylie looked at her. "You're engaged," she pointed out.

"Ah, well." Her expression softened. "Egon is one of the exceptions. Unfortunately there aren't many of those."

"You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince, huh?"

"Exactly," Janine nodded emphatically. "Exactly. But don't let that discourage you – I'm sure you'll find one."

"Ha! I don't _want_ one."

"No?"

"No. They're more trouble than they're worth."

"Maybe," Janine smiled slightly, as Roland and Eduardo suddenly charged downstairs and Garrett was practically spat out by the elevator.

"Kylie!" exclaimed the latter. "Are you ok? Egon said something happened with Mike."

"Nothing _happened_." Kylie shook Janine off her shoulders. "I found out exactly who he was, that's all."

"Was?" queried Eduardo. "You mean he's gone? Damn it!" He marched over to the front door. "How long ago did he leave? I was gonna punch him for you."

Kylie smiled slightly. "You don't have to do that."

"So who hired him and why?" asked Roland.

"I _must_ be stupid – I didn't even figure out that much," said Kylie, with a humourless smile. "Jack's mother hired him to get me to tell him what really happened when Jack disappeared."

"O-oh!" Garrett, Eduardo and Roland all droned in unison. Then Garrett added, "It's so obvious when you know."

"I should have thought of that," muttered Eduardo. "I'm sorry, Kylie."

"Hey, don't apologise. _You_ never trusted him in the first place, as I recall."

"Are you ok?" asked Roland. He took a step towards Kylie and placed a hand on her shoulder.

Garrett drew up beside her and, lightly touching her elbow, he added, "Because if you're not, I'll give him another punch once Eddie's finished with him."

"I'm all right," said Kylie. "I'm pissed at Jack's mother, but I'm all right."

"Good." Eduardo wandered over and joined the small gathering. Kylie still had a free shoulder, so he took that. "We'd hate for you to cry over a nobody like him."

"He's virtually broke," said Kylie. "And he's wracked with guilt."

"Well." Garrett gave a little nod of approval. "Good."

"How's Daniel?" asked Kylie, deciding it was time to change the subject.

"We fed him," said Roland. "Now he's taking a shower. He seems… confused."

"I imagine he would be," remarked Kylie. "Let's just hope he won't have to wait too much longer to see his son."

As it was, they had to wait about fifteen hours for Jack to arrive with his mother. It was the middle of the night when Jack phoned, on Sandra's insistence, to check that his father was still at the firehouse. Kylie answered the call. Egon had gone home with Janine so, with the exception of the sleeping Slimer, she was the only one there.

"Kylie…" Jack's voice was barely audible. "Is he really…?"

"Yes, Jack, it's really him," said Kylie. "Come to the firehouse – we're still here."

Daniel, as had been his occupation for most of the night, was pacing the length of Janine's desk and wringing his hands. He had washed and shaved, but he still looked prematurely old. Kylie sat on the corner of the desk, watching him.

"It'll be ok," she said at last.

Daniel stopped pacing. "He must have changed."

"He has."

"So have you."

"So have _you_," said Kylie. "I thought you'd look more like yourself after you got cleaned up, but… Mr. Ryan, why did you disappear like that?"

Daniel shook his head. "I don't know, Kylie. I guess I just didn't want to exist. I even thought about… you know… killing myself a few times, but I couldn't do it, just in case Jack was alive. I was so sure that he wasn't, but there was always a chance. I thought… I thought one day I'd find out for sure he'd been killed, and then I'd do it."

"Kill yourself?"

"Yes."

"Jesus. So how were you going to find out?" Kylie asked gently. "Go to every convicted child killer with that picture until one of them said, 'Yep – I did it'?"

"Well… yes. What other way was there?"

"That was a long shot. Anything could have happened to him."

"I know." Daniel looked down at his clasped hands for a moment, and then resumed pacing. "I know, but it seemed the most likely, after what you told the police."

Kylie frowned. "What did I tell the police?" she asked, puzzled.

"About the man outside your window."

"Oh."

"I guess Jack must have gotten away from him, or… or… what happened to him, Kylie? Where has he been all this time? Does he remember?"

Kylie shook her head. "I don't think so."

Once again, silence enveloped them. Kylie glanced anxiously at the door. She had left it unlocked, and she knew that her heart rate wouldn't slow until Jack walked through it. She wondered how Daniel must be feeling. Did he really believe that he was going to see his son again after all this time? Kylie knew that her sudden appearance at the homeless shelter that morning – or rather the previous morning, technically – must have been the last thing he had expected. The poor man probably thought he'd gone mad.

When the door finally swung open, Jack didn't so much walk through it as plunge. He came to an unsteady stop and then just stood there, staring. Daniel stared straight back. Kylie bit her lip, wondering why neither of them was reacting. They had both changed so much. Perhaps they simply didn't recognise each other. But that was impossible, surely. It wasn't like they'd just passed each other on the street – they both knew why they were there.

Then it happened. It sunk in. Daniel, his eyes shining with tears, seemed to sag. He looked about to topple over. Jack stepped forward and caught him in his arms.

"It's me, Dad," he said gently. "It's ok."

At last Kylie was able to breathe out. This, she couldn't help noticing, was far more disjointed than Jack's reunion with his mother at the airport had been. Kylie looked over to where Sandra stood in the open doorway. Her neat hair, designer suit and tight-lipped expression were illuminated by the artificial light from the street outside. That woman seemed so together. Ok, so she'd had a phone call from the police to prepare her for the reunion with her son, rather than a ghost from the past charging into her life and yelling at her. But that alone couldn't explain the difference. Sandra had been together for longer than that. She had a husband and a stepdaughter, and even another child, whereas Daniel… well, he had spent the last ten years planning his suicide. It was odd, Kylie thought, how people coped in such different ways.

Sandra watched with narrowed eyes as Kylie crossed the room towards her.

"That was a dirty trick," the younger woman said calmly.

"I know you're keeping something from me," snapped Sandra. "It's cruel – you deserved that. Not that you were ever supposed to know. That stupid ass…"

"If you want to know where Jack's been so badly, why don't you just ask him?"

"I have. He doesn't remember. So where _is_ Lawson anyway?" Sandra suddenly demanded. "I need to get a refund."

"It's very late, Mrs. Ryan." Kylie could never get used to calling her anything else. "He's probably asleep."

"Right, of course." She looked extremely irritated. "So, Kylie… when Lawson was trying to find out what happened to Jack… what exactly did he _do_?"

"He asked a lot of questions."

"What, that's it? He didn't peek at your diary or anything?"

"I think he wanted to."

"There must be better private investigators in New York than him…"

"Hello, Sandra."

On hearing Daniel's voice, Sandra and Kylie both looked up. The poor man was still clinging desperately onto Jack as though afraid of losing him again.

"Hello, Daniel." Sandra managed a tight smile.

"Look, I'm, um… sorry about walking out on you like that."

"I thought you were dead."

"Oh." Daniel pulled a face. "Nice. So… how have you been?"

"Fine."

"She's been great," volunteered Jack.

"Don't exaggerate, honey. Look, Daniel, I need to talk to you about… about…"

Sensing her agitation, Kylie looked at Sandra. Her steely expression had given way to one of sheer unease. It was only too obvious that something wasn't right here.

"He's not exaggerating," Kylie said carefully. "You've been doing very well – haven't you, Mrs. Ryan? Why don't you show Daniel a picture of your baby?"

"Your baby?" Daniel's eyes widened. "You met someone else?"

"Well, _God_, Daniel – you just walked out on me, I mean - "

"I know, I know, it's ok. I'm sorry, Sandra – I shouldn't have just left like that. I didn't even think I'd ever come back – it's not like I expected you to wait for me. I wasn't thinking."

"It's ok," Sandra said hurriedly. "Look, can we not talk about this now?"

"Well, sure, ok, but I'm here now," Daniel rambled on. "We can sort out everything as soon as you're ready. I mean, obviously you'll want to get - "

"DANIEL!"

Kylie cut a glance at Jack. He looked completely puzzled, but it wasn't so hard to figure out – or so Kylie thought. She pulled her eyes away from Jack's face, not wanting to see his reaction, and said slowly, "You two never got divorced, did you?"

Daniel blinked at her. "No. I just… I just left."

"Of course!" exclaimed Jack. "I remember you telling me, Mom – Dad asked you to go with him and you didn't, so he just went. So you… I mean, isn't that like illegal or something?"

"What?" Daniel looked from Jack to Sandra to Kylie, utterly perplexed. "Isn't what illegal?"

"How was I to know he was alive?" Sandra demanded hotly. "I'm sorry, Jack, but I at least thought I'd never see him again. I made…"

Jack frowned. "Go on."

Sandra let out a deep sigh before continuing, "I made an attempt to find you, Daniel, when I agreed to marry Ted."

"So you knew he was missing for all that time?" exclaimed Jack.

"I remember how he was before he left," Sandra said defensively. "I thought he'd end up… well, he obviously didn't want to be found."

"I didn't." Daniel still looked completely out of his depth. "You remarried?"

"Yes," snapped Sandra. "I moved to Sacramento and married a single father and I live with him and his daughter and our son and now Jack, all right? Are you happy now?"

"Not really," Daniel had to admit.

"Well neither am I." Sandra glared venomously at Kylie, as though this was entirely her fault. "Ted won't forgive me for this – my marriage is over."

_It never really started_, thought Kylie, though she didn't dare say it out loud – Sandra seemed to want to kill her enough as it was. What was the penalty for bigamy in California? She couldn't help wondering.

"Ted's a jerk anyway," Jack ventured quietly, and all eyes turned to him. "He doesn't treat you right, Mom."

"What did you tell him happened to me?" demanded Daniel. "Did you tell him I was dead?"

"No – I told him the truth: you left. I didn't even say we got divorced – he just assumed."

"Oh God." Jack slipped gently out of his father's grasp and collapsed against Janine's desk. "What a mess."

At that moment, Kylie felt like an intruder. She also felt overwhelmed with guilt. It was pretty clear that Sandra thought Kylie was to blame for all of this. Her silence spoke volumes. And arguably, Kylie realised, she _was _to blame. _She_ had lost Jack in the first place; she had reunited him with his mother and then, with quite some considerable help, she had brought his father back into the picture. Just how much of that, Kylie wondered, was bad? She would have loved to ask Sandra that – the woman seemed to wish that her husband had never been found, at the very least.

"I'd better go home," Kylie said timidly. "You guys have obviously got some, some… some stuff. Of course you're more than welcome to stay here. There's no one about except Slimer. You've, um, met Slimer, haven't you? Yeah…"

She turned to leave. She had just stepped out onto the street when someone touched her elbow and said, "Hey, wait."

It was Jack. Kylie turned and smiled at him. She had almost forgotten the most important part of all this: she had her friend back. Daniel and Sandra had their son back and Jack had his life back. How could that possibly be a bad thing? Ok, so things were a bit of a mess for them right now, but what did it really matter?

"Thank you so much," whispered Jack, taking Kylie into a warm embrace. "I was so scared of what might have happened to him. I… I can't believe you really found him. I just saw him and I still can't believe it."

"Well," said Kylie. Her ear was against his chest – it was amazing how tall he'd grown. Or perhaps, she reflected, it was amazing how tall she _hadn't_ grown. "You have your mother's private detective to thank, really."

"Ah." Jack stepped back from her and looked down into her face. "Mom told me about that. I'm so sorry."

"Hey, it's not your fault."

"Well, if I'd told her what happened…"

"Yeah, ok, and if _I'd_ told her what happened…"

"I think I might tell her," said Jack. "And Dad. It's probably best."

"Ok," said Kylie.

"I can't believe… God, I have to stop saying that. I don't think she should demand a refund from this guy after he found Dad."

"That wasn't what she hired him for."

"So what? It's more important."

Kylie nodded. "I know."

"Kylie… since I came back Mom's been… she's changed. She's crazy. I mean, doing that to you, and… and marrying Ted when she never divorced Dad…"

Kylie let out a deep sigh. She had to say this, for herself as much as for Jack, because it was true – however hard it was for her to see. She touched Jack's arm and said, "I hope you won't be too hard on your mom. Yeah, she's turned into a class A b- um, she's done some crazy things, but she's really been through it. It may not look like it now, but losing you nearly destroyed her."

Jack blinked in surprise. "That was generous. She's treated you worse than anyone… except maybe Ted."

It was difficult to know what to say. Kylie had really grown to detest Sandra, following recent events, but she knew that she shouldn't be too hard on her. Having no children herself, she couldn't begin to imagine what it must be like to lose one. Surely it was enough to make anyone say and do crazy things.

"You're beautiful."

Kylie's eyes widened. She hadn't expected that.

"Really," Jack went on. "You've grown into a… a… a really lovely young woman. Does that sound lame?"

"Um, no," Kylie said robotically.

"I'm sorry we lost so much time."

"Yeah, me too."

"If we hadn't…"

He stopped there, still gazing down at her. Kylie panicked. She had a feeling he was about to kiss her. If they hadn't lost all of those years, if they had grown up together, maybe that would be what she wanted. But not now. Too much had happened.

Jack sighed. "We really can't go back, can we." It wasn't a question.

"No."

"It's so unfair."

"I know."

"I suppose I'm too young for you anyway, really. It's… it's difficult. My body is more mature than my mind, if you see what I mean."

Kylie nodded.

"I hope someday my mind will catch up," Jack went on. "All I really want to do now is start leading a normal life."

"You're getting on so well," Kylie said encouragingly. "I mean, we only got you back a few months ago, and you've really matured since then."

"Do you think… maybe… after some more time…?"

"I don't know."

They were silent for several moments. Finally Jack said, "You shouldn't walk home alone so late."

"I'll be ok."

"New York's a dangerous place, Kylie. I'd never forgive myself if I let you go and… and…"

"I was never seen again?"

"Yeah."

_You kinda owe me one of those_, thought Kylie, but again she kept it to herself. Jack wanted to forget all of that, and she had to let him. Aloud she said, "I'll get a cab."

Jack shook his head. "Stay here."

"What about your mom?"

"Forget her. I'm going to have to go back to Sacramento with her, at least for now. I don't know what Dad will do – I guess he needs to get his life back on track as well. When he does I might decide to stay with him, wherever that is, but… well, when Mom goes I'll have to follow. I want to see as much of you as I can before that happens."

"All right," Kylie nodded. "I'll stay. If… if you really want me to."

"Kylie." A smile split his features, and he put his arm around her to lead her back into the firehouse. "Of course I want you to. You're my best friend. Nothing's ever going to change that, is it?"

"No," said Kylie, mimicking his broad smile. That was exactly what she needed to hear. "Nothing's ever going to change that."

**Two months later:**

The phone was ringing when Kylie walked through the door. She rushed to answer it, which she normally wouldn't bother to do, but Jack had said he might call. She was anxious for news, besides which he could probably do with a chat. It was a difficult time for him. The poor guy must have been wondering whether he was ever going to have an easy time again.

"Hi, Jack." Kylie leaned back on her bed, and Pagan jumped onto her lap. "How's things?"

"Ah, well, very stressful, actually. They've started fighting for custody of Toby."

"Really? Your mom'll get him though, won't she? I thought unmarried fathers didn't get a look-in. Although, he did _think_ he married her…"

"That could well come into it," said Jack. "Mom just had a meeting with her lawyer, and she's got some problems. First off she has a criminal conviction – you know, the bigamy. And she doesn't have any money because she had to pay a fine that was like twice the refund she got from that private investigator."

Kylie hadn't thought about Mike for weeks. She vaguely wondered what he was doing now as she asked, "Didn't he give her a cheque for like four thousand dollars?"

"Yeah. Mom's fine was eight, which isn't so bad, because the maximum is ten."

"Jesus."

"I know. And… well, her lawyer also said that Ted's lawyer might be planning to use me in the case."

"Use _you_? How?" asked Kylie.

"Well." He seemed to hesitate. "Well, the last time Mom was in charge of a kid, she… you know… lost it."

"Oh, I see." For a moment she didn't know what else to say. "That's terrible for your mom. Whatever she's done, I think she's more than paying for it now. So what about Deborah? Are you keeping in touch?"

"Oh, yeah," said Jack. "Tobes is with us at the moment, and Deb comes over with Ted to see him. And me. She really seems to hate Mom, though. All of this is really upsetting her."

"I imagine it would be."

"I hope I don't lose touch with her. Next to you she's the person who's given me the most support through all of this."

"I'm sure she'll stay in touch – don't worry," advised Kylie. "And what about your dad? He and I have been in touch. I hear he's managed to get himself a job fitting tyres. He seems to think it's a bit of a comedown."

"It is, from being a mechanic," answered Jack. "But it's hard to get a job when you've got a past."

Kylie knew that Jack was worried about what would happen when he'd caught up with his education, and the time came for him to go out into the world and try to secure some kind of income. She smirked quietly when she had the idea of Mike, Jack and Daniel, all with their own employment problems, going into business together. _Your mysteries solved while we fix your car._

"He calls me every day," Jack went on. "Yesterday he was complaining about his crappy apartment. It sounds pretty horrible, but I don't care – I'm going to stay with him as soon as I feel I can leave Mom."

"When will that be?"

"I don't know. Maybe never, if she loses Toby."

"Well," said Kylie. Pagan turned over onto his back and stretched invitingly across her lap. "You know I'd love to see you. I hope you can come and see us soon."

After they had wrapped up the conversation, Kylie dangled a shoelace for Pagan and thought smilingly about how quickly Jack was catching up with himself. In the space of about half a year he had gone from having the mind of a six year old to using phrases like "private investigator", "custody", "bigamy" and "criminal conviction". Already his mother was starting to lean on him rather than the reverse, and the way Daniel was turning his life around was sure to be an invaluable factor in helping Jack to do the same thing. That boy used to idolise his father. Now that they were reunited, surely things could only get better.

The phone rang again.

"Hello?"

"Kylie, it's Egon. I'm sorry but we just got a call."

Kylie pulled a face. "You've got to be kidding me. I just got home."

"I know," said Egon. "I'm sorry. It's a disturbance in one of those overlarge apartments on the Upper West Side. That's all we know at this stage. Ah – Roland just arrived. He'll bring the Ecto-1 to pick you all up."

When the Ecto-1 pulled up outside Kylie's apartment building some time later, Eduardo and Garrett were already in it. Eduardo scooted over to make room for Kylie on the front seat.

"So some spoilt rich kid has a ghost," he said irritably. "Like he can't just buy a new apartment."

"The wealthy are people too, Eduardo," Kylie replied curtly.

As Roland pulled the car into gear, Kylie realised that this was a life miles away from Jack's, and not just in terms of proximity. She couldn't help wondering how things would be different if he hadn't been lost. It seemed likely that Jack would still be living in New York with his parents, but then again a lot could happen in a year, or even a month, never mind a decade. Friends grow apart no matter what happens, unless you make the effort to stay in touch.

"Jack's mom might lose custody of her other kid. You know – Toby."

Roland snorted. "Serves her right."

"You think?" Kylie cocked an eyebrow. "Surely no one deserves to lose two sons in one lifetime."

"She can't take care of a kid," Eduardo decided. "And anyway, she's a bitch. She deserves everything she gets."

Kylie couldn't help smiling. "I'm touched by your loyalty."

"Yeah, well." Garrett caught her eye in the rear view mirror and flashed her a knowing smile. "You know how it is, Ky. Good friends stick by you."

THE END


End file.
